


Scablands

by Eighty_Sixed



Series: Scablands [1]
Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Codependency, Depression, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Permanent Injury, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychosis, Self-Mutilation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:35:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 60,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26077318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eighty_Sixed/pseuds/Eighty_Sixed
Summary: After five years, the Twin Peaks Killer's reign of terror comes to an end, and Harry and Cooper's healing process begins.
Relationships: Dale Cooper & Harry Truman
Series: Scablands [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985891
Comments: 27
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Strange Men](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12712176) by [toyhto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto). 
  * Inspired by [The Taste of Coffee](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18156536) by [desperately_human](https://archiveofourown.org/users/desperately_human/pseuds/desperately_human). 
  * Inspired by [Like Acting, But Sadder](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21502858) by [Aaron_The_8th_Demon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon). 



> This was inspired by several excellent existing fics. It's based on the same premise as Strange Men by toyhto and The Taste of Coffee by desperately_human, namely that Cooper gets out of the Black Lodge after five years (I'm pretty sure I've read other fics with that premise as well, but am having trouble locating them again). The twist here is that I have Harry leave Twin Peaks. Another inspiration is Like Acting, But Sadder by Aaron_The_8th_Demon (which itself cites The Taste of Coffee as an influence). Like that fic, this one features a stay in a psychiatric hospital. Anyway, here's my humble contribution to the "five years out" sub-genre.

_Day 0_

Harry finished his glass of whiskey and waved at the bartender for another one. Tomorrow was his day off, so there was no reason to even try to stay sober tonight. He had just gotten off another double shift, his third one that week. He always volunteered for overtime, because he needed something, anything, to fill his days.

Still, he was glad to be done with the work week. That was a feeling he had never had when he was sheriff in Twin Peaks. That had been a vocation, but working for the Missoula police department was just a job. Missoula wasn’t that much bigger than Twin Peaks, but somehow it felt more like a city. Maybe it was because of the university, which made for a much more transient population. Maybe it was just because he didn’t really belong in Missoula, still didn’t really know anyone here and didn’t make any effort to. Either way, whereas in Twin Peaks he had spent his work days helping his neighbors with their problems, now it felt like all he did as a city cop was bust junkies for shooting up down by the river or break up rowdy parties over in the student ghetto. Then, when he was done with his double shifts, at the end of the day he still had to go home. Some nights, he went home and drank there. Other nights, when he couldn’t stand being alone with nothing but a bottle and his own thoughts, he went to a bar instead.

Tonight was a bar night. It was a weeknight, and the only patrons were the sad sacks like him, the solitary serious drinkers. The only sounds were the clink of glasses and the drone of the eleven o’clock news playing softly on the TV above the bar.

As the bartender came over to refill his glass, something the TV newsman said caught Harry’s attention. It was the words “Twin Peaks.” As was inevitably the case whenever those words were spoken on the news, they were immediately followed by the word “killer.” Involuntarily, Harry’s eyes were drawn to the screen. It was always that way whenever he heard the words “Twin Peaks Killer” on the news or heard his fellow officers say it while chatting over donuts at the station. He wanted more than anything to look away, to block his ears, but it was like something deep within him was convinced that the news would be different this time. But it always ended up being the same thing. Another dismembered body discovered, another missing person found dead. The Twin Peaks Killer strikes again.

Except this time, the news _was_ different. The headline graphic on the screen proclaimed, “SUSPECT IN TWIN PEAKS MURDERS KILLED BY POLICE.” Harry felt his stomach drop. “Hey, turn that up,” he commanded the bartender.

“What?” The bartender was returning the whiskey bottle to its place behind the bar.

“Turn up the TV, now.” Harry was almost shouting.

As the bartender fumbled with the remote control, the news report cut from the anchorman to a young blond reporter in the field. Numbly, Harry recognized the exact spot where she was standing, right across from the Double R Diner. “I’m here in Twin Peaks, Washington, where the local sheriff’s department and the FBI have confirmed that, earlier this evening, a suspect in the Twin Peaks Killer case was involved in a shootout with local law enforcement and federal agents. The suspect received multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene.”

For the past five years, Harry had felt like he had been walking around with a knife sticking out of his chest. The pain was always there, but he was barely aware of it as long as he didn’t probe the wound. Now, however, it was like someone had grabbed the handle and was twisting the blade deeper.

The reporter continued. “No law-enforcement officers were injured. Authorities have not yet confirmed the identity of the suspect. However, the prime suspect in the case has long been former FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, the subject of a years-long manhunt in the wilderness of northeastern Washington State.”

As she spoke, the screen flashed on a photo of Coop from his FBI ID. It was the same photo they always used on the news, and on the FBI’s Most Wanted posters. It was another thing Harry always tried to avert his eyes from. But this time he was in too much shock to look away in time, and he got his first good look at Coop’s face in years. He was smiling in the photo. Harry wondered how many people were smiling in their FBI’s Most Wanted photos. In the photo, Coop looked as handsome as Harry remembered, and so happy and goofy and kind. It seemed impossible for anyone to believe that that was the face of a serial killer.

The screen went back to the reporter. “This small mountain community has gained national notoriety for being terrorized by the so-called Twin Peaks Killer, who is alleged to be responsible for thirteen brutal murders in the past five years. Now, with the death of the suspect, perhaps the town’s long nightmare has come to an end.” With that, the reporter perkily signed off and the news cut back to the anchorman, who moved on to the next story.

Harry sat for a moment, unable to move, unable to think. All he could do was just hurt. Reflexively, he threw back the glass of whisky he had before him. It burned on the way down and sat sickly in his stomach. He put some money on the bar and stood up. The room was spinning, even though he wasn’t drunk enough for that, and he heard a rushing sound in his ears. He stumbled to the back of the bar, where there was a payphone next to the men’s room. Digging some coins from his pocket, he dialed a number that he still somehow remembered.

“Twin Peaks Sheriff Department, this is Lucy.” The voice was unmistakable.

“Lucy.” That was all Harry could say. But she seemed to recognize him immediately, like she had been expecting his call.

“Sheriff Truman? Is that you?” It was funny that she still called him sheriff. “I’ll connect you with Sheriff Hill right away.” Harry had never before heard Lucy connect a call that fast, or have that short a conversation with anyone.

Immediately, Hawk’s voice came on the phone. “Harry, we’ve been trying to reach you.”

“I’ve been out.”

He must have slurred his words, because Hawk asked, “Have you been drinking?”

Harry didn’t want to answer that. He just wanted to know one thing. “Is –” His lips formed Coop’s name, but his voice wouldn’t say it. “Is he really –” He couldn’t finish that sentence either.

But Hawk cut him off. “Harry, Cooper’s alive.”

The knife that had been inside Harry’s chest was now suddenly wrenched out. With a gasp, Harry felt the pain anew as a flood gushing forth from the open wound. “But – the news said –”

“I don’t know what that thing was we killed, but it wasn’t Cooper. It looked like him, but it wasn’t him.”

Harry had known that all along. When Coop had come back from the Black Lodge that night, he hadn’t been Coop anymore. At least a dozen time in the past few years, Harry had almost gotten to a place where he could accept that his friend was gone, where he could grieve and then get on with his life, such as it was. But then there would be another damn headline, “Twin Peaks Killer Strikes Again,” or he would catch a glimpse of the FBI’s Most Wanted poster in the post office, and the agony would stab him all over again. But this was a possibility that hadn’t even occurred to him, that there was still a Coop out there to be found. “How do you know he’s alive?” Hawk had better not be just speculating. But, no, Hawk wouldn’t do that–

“We found him.” That matter-of-fact statement made Harry’s stomach drop again. “We were out by Glastonbury Grove. That’s where we shot” – Hawk momentarily struggled for the right word – “the suspect. About an hour afterwards, a couple of my deputies were securing the scene, and they found Cooper in the woods.”

Glastonbury Grove. That was where Harry had last seen Coop, the real Coop, entering the Black Lodge. Harry’s mind sprang unbidden to the obvious conclusion, that Coop had never left the Black Lodge at all. He had been trapped there all that time while something evil walked free wearing his face. Five years –

But Harry couldn’t think about that now. There was something else he had to know. “Is he – okay?”

Hawk paused, which in and of itself answered the question. “No. We sent him down to the state hospital at Medical Lake.” That was the psychiatric hospital. “We told them he’s a John Doe, a victim of the Twin Peaks Killer. I mean, I guess that part is true.”

Harry could feel his heart thudding. Coop was in a psychiatric hospital. God only knew what he had been though. Five years –

Again, he deliberately forced his thoughts away from that downward spiral. He appreciated Hawk trying to protect Coop’s identity. After all, the whole world thought he was a serial killer, a newly dead one at that, and even if there was some way to explain what had happened, the media circus would be the last thing Coop needed right now. But there seemed to be a flaw in the whole John Doe plan. “His picture is all over the news,” Harry found himself saying numbly. “Won’t they recognize him?”

Hawk’s reply was chilling. “No. They won’t.”

Conflicting emotions had been doing battle inside Harry’s chest ever since that news report came on, but suddenly one rose to the top, an imperative he had to follow. “Medical Lake.” He said the name aloud to himself as if it would magically transport him there. “I have to go,” he told Hawk.

“Harry, wait a minute –“. But Harry hung up and left the bar.

He was in no shape to drive, he knew that. His blood alcohol was probably over the legal limit, although he had developed enough tolerance from his years of hard drinking that he didn’t feel intoxicated. But, even apart from the alcohol, he was definitely impaired. He almost dropped his keys on the ground, his hands were shaking so much. Getting into his truck, he sat for a moment and took a few deep breaths. Then he drove across town and got on Interstate 90, heading west.

Missoula didn’t have much urban sprawl, so almost on soon as he got on I-90 there was nothing but darkness on each side of the interstate, the only lights from those of occasional headlights from the opposing eastbound lanes. This late at night, with a whole lot of nothing but woods and mountains all the way between Missoula and Coeur d’Alene, the only other vehicles on the road were the big rigs, which Harry easily passed as they crawled up the passes in low gear.

The darkness of the ride and the turmoil he was feeling brought him back to that other nighttime drive he had taken on this same interstate, in the opposite direction, five years ago. That was the night it had become clear that Coop was really gone, and Harry had felt a sudden need to be anywhere other than Twin Peaks. He remembered standing in the parking lot of the sheriff’s station late that night, when Hawk had tried to convince him to stay, saying that the town needed him now more than ever. But Harry had known he was no good to anyone now and might not ever be again. The darkness in the woods had taken Coop, the best man he’d ever known, and made him into a monster. Harry had once believed in justice, but he didn’t anymore. He didn’t have anything left to believe in. He had known that they had to find Coop, or the thing he had become, and stop him in the only way possible, but he had known with equal certainty that there was no way he would ever be able to bring himself to do that. So he had told himself, and had told Hawk, that leaving was the only responsible thing to do, that he had to leave the job he knew had to be done to someone who was capable of doing it. So he had driven off with no destination other than away. The decision about which direction to go had been easy. North was the border, and west was the Pacific, and he had needed an escape route free of obstacles. So he had started off going south, until he reached Interstate 90 in all its continent-spanning glory. Eastbound, there were thousands of miles until the next geographic barrier. Of course, he hadn’t made it thousands of miles, because five hours into the drive the full weight of his grief had sunk in, and he had pulled into a rest stop in Missoula so he could lie down in his truck cab and cry. Then he had stayed in Missoula, because after all there were nearly three hundred miles and several mountain ranges between him and Twin Peaks, and even if it wasn’t far enough, nowhere else was either.

Now he was going back, not to Twin Peaks, but closer than he had been in five years, closer than he had ever wanted to be again. Medical Lake was a small town just west of Spokane, and he knew Spokane well. Even though it was two hours south of Twin Peaks, it was the closest real city, so it was where everyone in town went to buy furniture and go to the movies and see concerts. Now, as he followed I-90 through Spokane, he drove past the familiar exits, staying on the interstate for another twenty minutes until he saw the sign for Medical Lake, an exit he had driven past a million times but never taken. He had never had any reason to, because everyone who went to the tiny town, much smaller than Twin Peaks, went there for one of two reasons. To go to the Air Force base there, or to go to Eastern State Hospital.

It was after 2 am when he pulled into the hospital parking lot. He parked and then sat in his truck, feeling a bit stupid. He hadn’t really thought this through. It was the middle of the night, of course they weren’t going to let him into the hospital now. It would have been a lot smarter to go straight home from the bar and then made the three-hour drive from Missoula in the morning. He had driven impaired for no good reason. But there was no way he could have done anything else. Staying in his apartment all night would have driven him crazy. At least this way he had _done_ something, even if it was something stupid and pointless. He briefly thought about finding a motel to crash in for a few hours. But staring up at the mostly dark windows of the hospital, he thought, _Coop’s in one of those rooms_. That thought was enough to keep him right where he was, as if his mere spatial proximity would somehow keep Coop from disappearing again.

So he lay down across the seat of his truck cab, like he had done at that rest stop in Missoula five years ago. He tried to quiet the thoughts racing through his head, about what kind of condition Coop was in, what he had been through the past five years, how he would react to seeing Harry. Eventually, he managed to drift off into a restless sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

_Day 1_

Harry woke and sat up, his back stiff from the couple of hours he had spent in his uncomfortable sleeping position. He had parked his truck facing east, and through the windshield the rising sun glinted on an expanse of water just beyond the parking lot. That must be the town’s namesake lake. The dawn light also illuminated the hospital building, which he could see clearly now for the first time. It didn’t look like a hospital. It looked more like a university campus, with a sprawling collection of old brick buildings.

It was still early, so he sat in the truck cab and waited a couple more hours. He thought about turning on the radio just to have something to distract him from his mounting anxiety, but he didn’t want to take the chance of hearing another news report about the Twin Peaks Killer. So instead he just watched the sun climb higher, trying to identify all the waterfowl he could see flitting in and out of the lake.

Just before 8 am, cars started to pull into the parking lot, people dressed in scrubs getting out and entering the building. The start of the day shift. Harry figured it was probably a reasonable enough hour to be allowed in, so he got out of the truck and crossed the parking lot toward what seemed to be the main entrance to the largest building.

He was now fully sober and wished he wasn’t. He could have used a shot to steady his nerves. After the drive and then the wait, now that he had the opportunity to finally go in, he almost didn’t want to. He was suddenly, thoroughly, terrified about what he would find. Slowly, deliberately, he walked up to the entrance and pushed the door open before he had a chance to completely lose his nerve.

He went up to the reception desk and said to the woman sitting there, as calmly and confidently as he could manage, “I’m here to see a patient.”

She stared at him. “Visiting hours aren’t until three.”

Dammit. After all that, there was no way he could wait that long. That would mean more hours of trying to distract himself from worry, and then having to scrounge up the courage to walk through the door again. He decided to try the cop gambit. Flashing his badge at her, he said in an officious tone, “This is police business.”

She squinted at the badge. “Missoula Police Department?” she asked dubiously.

Damn it. He’d been hoping she wouldn’t look at the badge too closely. Abandoning the pretense, he decided to appeal to her humanity. “Please. I need to see this patient now.”

Examining him suspiciously, she asked, “Which patient are you here to see?”

“The John Doe who was brought in from Twin Peaks last night.”

At that, her eyes widened. “Oh.” She considered him for a moment, then reached for the phone. ”I’ll call Dr. Sherman.” She dialed and turned away so he that he couldn’t hear what she was saying. After a brief conversation, she hung up the phone and turned back to him. “Dr. Sherman will be right out to speak with you.”

Harry paced around the reception area for a couple of minutes until a young Native woman in a white doctor’s coat came through a set of double doors that apparently led to the main part of the hospital. “Good morning, Officer …?”

“Harry Truman.”

“I’m Dr. Sherman. I’m in charge of the care of our new patient from Twin Peaks.”

“Please let me see him.” Harry was aware that he sounded desperate, but he was past caring by now.

“Officer Truman, this is a secure facility.” Her tone was very calm and reassuring. Of course, she was a psychiatrist, so Harry probably wasn’t the craziest person she had interacted with that morning. “We have several forensic units. Many of our patients could be a danger to themselves or to others. So for the safety of our patients and our staff, we have to do a security screening of everyone who enters this hospital.”

“I understand.” He did, it made sense that they wouldn’t let anyone in off the street. With an effort, he injected as much reasonableness into his voice as he could. “So screen me.”

“There’s a visitor application form.” The receptionist handed the form to him. “Just fill it out,” Dr. Sherman continued, “and you should hear back within five business days –”

“Five days?” The calm he had been projecting was gone again. “Why the hell does it take so long?”

“You need to go through a criminal background check –”

“I’m a police officer!” Now he was practically shouting, and a uniformed security guard standing near the double doors in the back looked like he was getting ready to intercede.

Dr. Sherman didn’t seem perturbed. “Then maybe your screening will be expedited. I’m not sure, that’s up to our security department.” The more agitated he got, the calmer she became. That must be something psychiatrists trained for. “Officer Truman,” she went on in a lower voice, “I have to tell you, even if you were already on the approved visitors list, I wouldn’t let you in now. Aside from the fact that it’s outside visiting hours, you’ve been drinking.” Harry guessed she could smell the whiskey on him. “And you’re upset.” Well, it didn’t take a psychiatrist to see that. “So please, just fill out the application, go home, and get some rest. You can come back once your application is approved.”

Harry wrestled his frustration under control. He could still see the security guard watching carefully from the back of the room, and he figured getting kicked out now would probably hurt his chances of getting cleared to visit later. Giving in, he said, “Okay. But will you at least tell me how he is?”

She studied him for a moment, then asked, “What is your relationship to the patient?”

“He’s my –” Just in time, he remembered that there were confidentiality laws, so she probably wouldn’t be able to tell him anything because he wasn’t family. “My cousin,” he finished. “His name is Dan Carter.” Inwardly, he winced. He wished he’d thought of inventing a fake name in advance, because the one he came up with on the spot sounded lame.

“Well, Dan has been through a lot,” she said. “Right now he’s being treated for his injuries.” Harry frowned at that. Hawk hadn’t mentioned any injuries. “Later today, I’ll do a full psychiatric evaluation. We’ll know more about his condition then. But in the meantime, please rest assured that your cousin is getting the best psychiatric care in the state.” Harry wished she’d stop saying _psychiatric_. It conjured up all sorts of unpleasant images in his mind about what might be happening to Coop somewhere in this building.

He thanked her as politely as he could, she went back through the double doors, and he sat in a chair by the reception desk to fill out the stupid visitor application form. It was mercifully short. Name, address, contact info, social security number, consent to criminal background check. The form didn’t ask anything about the applicant’s employment, but he wrote in big letters across the top of the form “Officer with Missoula Police Department”, along with his badge number, in hopes that that would expedite the background check as Dr. Sherman had said. Only one field tripped him up, the one that said “Relationship to patient.” He hovered his pen over that one for a couple of minutes, hesitating. He kind of had to stick to the cousin story now, but he felt uncomfortable lying on the form. If they checked into it and found out that it wasn’t true, maybe they could use that as grounds to reject his application. But on the other hand, he probably wasn’t going to be able to find out anything about Coop’s condition unless the hospital staff thought he was a family member. He really wished he had come up with a plan for this stuff ahead of time, but he hadn’t really been in a planning frame of mind. Still wasn’t, actually. Maybe Hawk would be able to help. Finally, he just scrawled “cousin” on the form and gave it back to the receptionist.

Leaving the building and getting back into his truck, he thought about what to do next. He knew what he wanted to do, but he was going to have a hard time finding a bar or liquor store that was open this early. Well, clearly he was going to be in Medical Lake for a while, and he didn’t want to sleep in his truck again. So he drove back towards the I-90 ramp, where a small collection of cheap, seedy motels huddled beneath the interstate billboards. He pulled up to the cheapest, seediest-looking one and got a room for the night. The guy at the desk gave him his key because even this early in the morning they already had a clean room available, or at least clean by the standards of roadside motels that also offered hourly rates. Gratefully, Harry went into the room, which stank of mildew and cigarette smoke, and collapsed onto the bed. He took a few deep breaths, staring up at the water-stained ceiling, listening to the steady roar of the trucks rumbling along I-90 right outside his window.

When he felt like he was capable of speech again, he reached for the bedside phone and called Hawk. As soon as Hawk answered, Harry said immediately, “They wouldn’t let me see him.”

Hawk sighed. “Yeah, I figured that might be the case. I tried to tell you last night, but you hung up on me.”

“They said he had injuries.”

There was a long pause. “I tried to tell you about that too.”

“Well?” Now Harry was really worried. “What happened?”

“When my deputies found him, he was scratching at his face.” The gentleness of Hawk’s voice stood in stark contrast to the horror of his words. “With his fingernails, sticks, even a sharp rock he found somewhere. We had to restrain him to keep him from hurting himself anymore.”

Harry closed his eyes. God, he wished he had some whiskey here in the room with him. “How bad is he hurt?” he managed to ask.

“I’m not sure. Pretty bad, I think. There was a lot of blood.”

Swallowing hard, Harry put that mental image on the growing list of things he was not allowing himself to think about. The priority now was making sure he was allowed in the hospital to see Coop. “Hawk, I need to ask a favor.”

“Anything, Harry, you know that.”

“I talked with one of the doctors, and I told her I was Coop’s cousin. Even made up a name for him. Dan Carter.” Harry laughed mirthlessly at that. “And I put that on the visitor application form too. I was worried they wouldn’t tell me anything if they knew I wasn’t family. But now I’m worried they’ll check into it and find out that Dan Carter doesn’t exist and that I’m not his cousin. Maybe you could call the hospital, back me up?”

Hawk sighed again. “Harry, I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

Harry’s heart sank. He knew it was unfair of him to ask Hawk to lie for him, but he didn’t know what else to do. “Well, if you don’t want to lie, maybe we can figure something else out –” he said uncertainly.

“It’s not that.” Hawk sounded dismissive. “I’ll back up your story with the hospital security department if that’s what you want me to do. They’re not detectives, all they care about is that no one on the visitor’s list is going to smuggle in drugs or weapons and that no patient will sue the hospital for disclosing medical information to an unauthorized person. They’ll probably accept what you tell them about Cooper’s identity and your relationship to him at face value.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to see Cooper.” Hawk spoke bluntly. “Not now, anyway. He’s, well, he’s in pretty bad shape. He didn’t recognize any of us. He couldn’t speak. He was just –” Hawk paused. “I know you want to help him, but I don’t think you can, and it’s going to be hard for you to see him like that. It might be better if you just give him some time on his own.”

On this point, at least, Harry had no doubts. He could still hear Coop’s words, that night as he went into the Black Lodge, that he had to go on alone. “He’s been on his own for five years. I have to let him know he’s not alone anymore.”

Hawk agreed, with obvious reluctance, to call the hospital. After Harry gave him the number of his hotel room phone, they hung up. Moving seemed like too great an ordeal, and Harry had nowhere to go. So he stayed on the bed, staring up at the stained ceiling and listening to the interstate roar. The morning sun was partially eclipsed by a gun-store billboard right outside his window, which cast a shadow against the wall of his room. At some point, exhausted from his sleepless night, he fell asleep.

He was awoken by the phone ringing. The sun had moved far enough that the billboard shadow was now on a completely different wall. As he reached for the phone, he saw on the alarm clock radio that it was now afternoon. It was Hawk on the phone, calling with good news, or what passed for it nowadays. He had spoken to the hospital security office and told them that Dan Carter had been missing for five years, apparently held captive by the Twin Peaks Killer all that time. Harry was impressed by how close that was to the truth. Hawk had also backed up Harry’s claim of being Dan Carter’s cousin, and the hospital security people had apparently called Missoula PD to verify his badge number. Then they had called Hawk back, since they didn’t have a number to reach Harry, to tell him that they were waiving the criminal background check since he was in law enforcement and that Harry was now on the approved visitor list. Hawk told him, with a note of caution in his voice, that he was free to visit Coop during visiting hours at 3 pm the next day.

At that, Harry sat up. He thanked Hawk, promised he would check in the next day to let him know how it went, and hung up. Harry looked at the alarm clock again. In just over twenty-four hours, he would be with Coop. Now that the bureaucratic nightmare was over, he had to switch gears to preparing for whatever other kind of nightmare awaited him. At least he had plenty of time to drink now and still be in good enough shape by the next afternoon to be let into the hospital.

He immediately headed out to find a liquor store. He didn’t have to look far, because it turned out there was one right across the road. There were advantages to staying in the seedy part of town. He dashed across the road, bought two bottles of Jack, and dashed back. Then he spent the rest of the day in his sad little motel room, getting completely shitfaced.

There was a reason he usually preferred drinking in bars. Having other people around living their own screwed-up lives made him less introspective, more able to turn the focus of his pain outward. Drinking alone like this, he always went through a period where he was still sober enough to fixate on his pain but drunk enough to lose any illusion of control over it. At times like that, he had to do what he did tonight, which was to slam back the alcohol so quickly that he became completely numb. That did the trick, getting him through the long hours that would have otherwise been spent wondering what Coop’s face looked like now or whether Coop was in a straitjacket or padded room or what the hell he himself was going to say or do tomorrow when he finally saw Coop again. Time became fuzzy and blurred, which was good. Eventually, long after it had gotten dark, he fell asleep again, or passed out, and that was even better.


	3. Chapter 3

_Day 2_

The next thing Harry was aware of was the return of the morning sun, signified by the roadside billboard casting its sundial shadow on its original wall. Out of nowhere, he remembered that he was supposed to go back to work this morning. He reached for the phone, missed, tried again, and slowly, carefully dialed Missoula PD. He told his shift supervisor that he was calling in sick. The officer seemed a bit surprised, because Harry was known around the station for never missing a shift despite the open secret of his drinking problem, but the guy didn’t question it. After all, Harry was aware that he did not sound at all well. Anyway, he had plenty of sick leave and vacation days saved up, because he never took them. Having completed that duty, he fell asleep again.

He woke up again feeling even sicker, maybe from the hangover, maybe from what he was about to face. The clock radio said it was now almost noon. Time to make himself presentable for the good employees of the Eastern State Hospital. He rolled out of bed, went to the bathroom and splashed water on his face, and stared into the mirror. He definitely didn’t look like someone who should be allowed into a mental hospital as a visitor. Maybe as a patient. He reached for his toothbrush before realizing that he didn’t have one, because he had driven here with nothing but the clothes on his back. No toothbrush, no deodorant, no change of clothes.

He drove to the little commercial strip that seemed to serve as Medical Lake’s main drag. Score. There was a Goodwill, and a drugstore too. He went into the Goodwill and bought a few t-shirts and pairs of jeans, then went into the drugstore to get a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a few other toiletries. He drove back to the motel, showered, changed, and otherwise attempted to make himself look like a sane and well-adjusted member of society. Surveying himself again in the mirror, with his oversized Gonzaga University t-shirt and bloodshot eyes, he figured it was the closest he was going to get. At least he didn’t smell like booze now.

He still had a couple of hours until three, so he got back in his truck and drove around until he found a diner. He had no appetite, but he hadn’t eaten anything since Missoula, so he went in and ordered a sandwich and a cup of coffee and choked it down. He lingered at his table for as long as he could, allowing the waitress to keep filling his coffee mug, because he didn’t want to go back to the motel or to go sit in the hospital parking lot. The place was the kind of small-town diner Coop would have loved, with strong coffee and lunch specials scrawled on a chalkboard hanging above the counter. The food sat uneasily in his stomach, and after a while he couldn’t even stand the smell of the coffee, so he paid and left, leaving a big tip for the waitress who had put up with him for so long.

By then, it was close enough to visiting hours that he headed to the hospital, taking the long way around the lake. He parked in the hospital lot at five till three, spent a few minutes trying to calm himself with deep breaths, and entered the reception area at three on the dot.

“I’m back,” he announced to the receptionist, unnecessarily. It was the same woman as yesterday, and of course she remembered him. He had been memorable.

“I’ll call Dr. Sherman,” she said.

Dr. Sherman smiled at him in greeting when she emerged a few minutes later. “Officer Truman, I’m glad your application was approved,” she said.

“Yeah, me too. Uh, sorry about yesterday.” He figured it was probably in his best interests to be on the doctor’s good side.

“It’s all right. I know this must be a difficult time for you.” Her smile faded away. “Now, you’ll need to go through the security checkpoint here. Once you get to the other side, I’ll meet you and take you to my office. There are a few things we need to discuss before you see Dan.”

“Okay.” This whole process really was bureaucratic water torture.

A security guard ushered him through a metal detector and had him verbally confirm that he did not have any weapons, drugs, lighters, explosives, aerosol spray cans, glass, hairdryers, safety pins, or electrical cords in his possession. After the metal detector, the guard took him through two sets of doors. It was a complicated process, in which the guard swiped his badge to open the first door, they went through and waited for that door to close, then the guard swiped his badge again to open the second door. Then they were finally through the vaunted double doors, in the secure part of the hospital. The guard led Harry down a hallway lined with offices, stopping at one with Dr. Sherman’s name on a plate on the door.

“Come in, Officer Truman,” the doctor said, gesturing at him to sit in a chair across from the desk where she was seated.

“You can call me Harry.” He sat down as the guard departed.

“All right. Harry, the staff is bringing your cousin to the visitation room now. But before you go in to see him, I want to tell you what we’ve learned so far about his condition and what you can expect. First, we’ve treated the lacerations on his face. When they’ve had a chance to heal, and when Dan is able to tolerate the procedure, we can refer him to a specialist for reconstructive surgery.” She paused at the look on Harry’s own face. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Harry took a deep breath. Despite Hawk’s description, he hadn’t been expecting that the injuries would be bad enough that _surgery_ would be needed. “Go on.”

“Well, other than the facial injuries, and some malnourishment, he’s otherwise physically healthy. As for his psychological condition, I’ve diagnosed him with something called brief psychotic disorder.”

“What is that?” Harry didn’t like the sound of _psychotic_ in the name, but the word _brief_ gave him the first flash of hope he’d felt in as long as he could remember.

“It’s a condition characterized by the sudden onset of some form of psychosis following a major traumatic event. In Dan’s case, the form of the psychosis is severe catatonia. That means that, right now, he is in a dissociative state, completely nonverbal and nonresponsive to external stimuli. I want you to be prepared for that. He will not be able to speak with you, or to respond to you in any way.”

Harry was already expecting that based on what Hawk had told him, but it was still disconcerting to hear all the medical jargon. Still, he tried to focus on the positive. “Why is it called brief?”

Dr. Sherman smiled. “That’s the good news. The condition is not caused by any underlying physical ailment, or by preexisting mental illness. I take it he was psychologically healthy prior to this ordeal?”

“Yeah. Healthier than anyone I know.” Harry had a flash of memory of Coop’s bright smile, of the sheer joy he had always seemed to find in everyday life, and the thought of that being gone dampened his mood again.

“Actually, maybe you can help fill in some gaps in his medical history.” She was frowning down at some papers on her desk, which Harry assumed must be Coop’s chart. “Do you know anything about the old scars on his abdomen? One looks like a stab wound and the other maybe a gunshot wound?”

“Uh, yeah. Those are from when he was stabbed and shot.”

“He was stabbed _and_ shot?” The doctor raised an eyebrow.

“Separate incidents,” Harry clarified. “He also used to work in law enforcement,” he added by way of explanation.

“Wow. Sounds like a dangerous job. Well, did he experience any psychological symptoms after either of those prior incidents? Depression, anxiety, flashbacks?”

“No. He was fine.” Harry didn’t actually know if that was the case for the stabbing, but any emotional problems Coop had had back then were probably because he had lost Caroline at the same time. As for the gunshot wound, Harry had personally witnessed Coop shaking that off like it was a stubbed toe, back to his chipper self within hours. That was part of why it scared Harry so much to wonder about what Coop had experienced over the past five years. It must have been pretty damn traumatizing to have had such a devastating effect on someone as strong as Coop.

“That’s good,” Dr. Sherman said. “It sounds like he’s a very resilient individual, which is good for his prognosis. Generally, in this kind of trauma response, the psychosis resolves itself, usually within about a week to a month.” Harry felt a surge of relief. Based on Hawk’s description, he had been afraid that Coop would be damaged beyond repair. Dr. Sherman quickly added, “That doesn’t mean he’ll be back to his old self right away after he recovers from the catatonic state. Given all that he’s been through, I expect he’ll also have some post-traumatic stress, which often presents with chronic depression and anxiety. We’ll know more about his long-term prognosis once he’s able to communicate again.” The doctor flipped through some more papers. “One more thing I wanted to update you on. I’ve filed my psychiatric evaluation to the court, and I expect that in the next day or two the judge will sign off on the civil commitment request.”

“What does that mean?” Despite her casual tone, Harry felt rising panic at the mention of courts and judges.

“We have two groups of patients in the hospital,” she explained. “In the forensic units, we have defendants in criminal cases who were found guilty except for insanity, as well as some in pending cases who are undergoing evaluation. Then we have our civil commitments, who are individuals who require 24-hour psychiatric care because they have been deemed a danger to others or themselves. That’s the group Dan is in.”

“But – he’s not a danger –” Harry was appalled at the implication she was making.

“To others, no. He hasn’t displayed any violent tendencies. The red flag here is the self-harm. I’m hoping it was an isolated incident, because so far he hasn’t tried to harm himself again while in our care, but patients experiencing post-trauma psychosis often behave unpredictably. That’s why I want to keep him in the hospital for now, and the civil commitment is what allows us to do that.”

“Oh.” Harry had never before experienced such a rollercoaster of emotions in a single conversation. He was fine with going along with whatever was necessary to keep Coop in the hospital for now, because at least here he was safe. But on the other hand, he really didn’t like hearing that Coop was now officially designated as a danger to himself.

“Also,” Dr. Sherman continued, “I assume there has been a lapse in his health insurance coverage, due to the length of his captivity. But he will be considered a ward of the state once the court order goes through, so his care will be covered.”

“Okay. Good.” That was something Harry hadn’t even thought to worry about, and now it sounded like he wouldn’t have to. Which was good, because he was pretty sure Coop was no longer on the FBI’s health insurance plan, since he was supposedly a serial killer and also supposedly dead now.

Dr. Sherman put down her papers and looked at him. “Do you have any questions?”

He had a million, but there was only one he wanted to ask now. “Can I see him now?”

She smiled again. “Yes. But just be aware that he’s in a vulnerable state right now. Please be careful not to make any loud sounds or sudden movements around him. Avoid physical contact too. And if you feel yourself becoming upset or agitated, it’s best to leave.”

Harry agreed to those terms, and she walked him out to the hallway and waved down a security guard to escort him to the visitation room. Before returning to her office, she handed him her business card and told him to call her with any questions or concerns.

The guard then took him past more offices toward a room at the end of the long hallway. There was another security guy there, apparently monitoring the activity inside the room through the windows. “Just let one of us know when you’re done and we’ll escort you out,” the guard said, opening the door for him.

The room looked like a large waiting room, with sofas, tables, and chairs scattered about. Ahead was a set of large windows with a view of the lake. Two groups of people, apparently patients visiting with their families, were clustered at opposite ends of the room. At one end, a young woman whose scarred arms poked out of her hospital gown sat at a table eating pizza with a sad-looking middle-aged couple, likely her parents. At the other end of the room, an older man with a dead-eyed stare played Monopoly with a guy who was maybe his son. And straight ahead, on the sofa facing the window, was Coop. He was facing away, but Harry recognized him from the back of his head. Same dark hair, albeit mussed up without any hair gel.

Harry caught his breath, which he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding, and slowly approached Coop. He took a wide angle around the sofa so he wouldn’t come up from behind and accidentally startle him. When he came far enough around that he could see Coop’s face in profile, it was like a punch in the gut. Coop’s face was completely covered in bandages, like a mummy, with only his eyes and mouth uncovered. Even though Harry had known to expect that, it was still shocking to see the extent of the damage Coop had done to himself.

Harry approached even more slowly now. It looked like he hadn’t needed to worry about startling Coop because, as the doctor had warned, Coop seemed completely oblivious to his presence. He perched on the coffee table, facing Coop, just a couple of feet away from him.

“Coop,” Harry said. His voice cracked a bit as he spoke, because his mouth was dry. It was, he realized, the first time he had said the name aloud in five years. He tried to summon up a smile, but couldn’t find one, so gave up. Coop didn’t move. Not even his eyes, which were completely unfocused, looking at nothing.

Harry reached out and covered Coop’s hand with his own. He vaguely remembered Dr. Sherman’s instructions to avoid physical contact, but he had to confirm that Coop was really here, had to try to get through to him somehow. “Coop,” he said again, a bit more firmly. “It’s me, Harry. Do you –” he had to stop again. “Do you remember me?”

It was like he was a ghost, or like Coop was. They were clearly not on the same plane of existence right now. Coop continued to stare straight ahead, or not even to stare. He looked thin in his hospital gown. The bandages were terrifying, in that they made Harry wonder crazily if Coop even had a face anymore underneath them. But by far the worst part of it all was his eyes. Harry remembered seeing those eyes shine with laughter, darken with concern, puzzle over mysteries. But now Coop’s eyes were just empty. It was like there was no one behind them.

Harry wanted to yell, or scream, or grab Coop and shake him. He wanted a drink. He wanted to get out of this room, out of this hospital. He remembered more of Dr. Sherman’s instructions, that he was supposed to leave if he got upset or agitated. Well, what he was feeling now definitely qualified. He stood up suddenly and walked as quickly as he could back to the door. “I’m leaving now,” he said to the guard outside, tapping against the window, while the other patients and visitors in the room stared.

The guard opened the door, not looking that surprised that Harry had lasted less than a full minute inside the room. “First visit?” the guy asked sympathetically. Harry just grunted in reply. The guard took him back through the labyrinth of hallways to the double set of doors. It seemed to take forever to get through the tedious process of badge-swiping, waiting, badge-swiping again. Finally, Harry made his escape through the lobby and the parking lot, got into his truck, and sat there for a long time, hating himself.

He had failed Coop yet again. First, he had failed him by letting him enter the Black Lodge alone. Then he had failed him by not realizing that he was still trapped, that the murderous thing walking around wearing Coop’s face was some kind of imposter. And now he had failed him by being too big of a coward to even stay in the same room with him for more than thirty seconds.

As soon as he stopped shaking, Harry drove straight back to the motel. Actually, he drove to the liquor store across the road from the hotel, replenished his whiskey supplies, and then parked back in the motel lot. Upon entering his room, he started drinking straight from one of his new bottles before he even took off his shoes. The rest of the night was a total blackout. He was vaguely aware of the phone ringing at one point. He thought he answered it, and thought he talked to Hawk, but had no idea later what either of them had said. Other than that, he wasn’t aware of anything other than his desperate need, which he tried to accomplish with every swig of the bottle, to unsee that empty look in Coop’s eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

_Day 3_

In the morning, Harry woke up just in time to call in sick again. He got no pushback from the shift supervisor at all, because he probably sounded like he was dying, and kind of felt that way too. After hanging up, Harry groaned and rolled away from the bright sunlight illuminating the gun store billboard outside. He felt like he was melding with this motel room, like the ugly stains on the ceiling and the sounds of the I-90 traffic were soaking into his soul just like the lingering cigarette smoke clung to his clothes.

As he lay there, he unwillingly dragged his thoughts back to the previous day at the hospital. Maybe he should just go back to Missoula. He was crazy to even be here. After all, who was he to Coop, really? He was just a small-town sheriff Coop had met while working a case. They had barely known each other for a month, five years ago. It wasn’t that Coop was indifferent to him or anything; he knew Coop had considered him a friend. He could tell by the obvious delight Coop took in his company, the weight he gave to Harry’s opinion, even by his body language, the way he often put a hand on Harry’s shoulder or on his back. If Coop had left Twin Peaks after wrapping the Laura Palmer case, as originally intended – Harry had to make an effort to divert his thoughts away from that what-if scenario, one of many his mind had a tendency to drift to – he probably would have kept in touch with Harry, and they would have stayed friends. But Coop was the kind of person who made friends easily. He probably had dozens of friends like that all over the country, people he’d met while working on cases. The only thing that would make Harry stand out, from Coop’s perspective, is that Harry was the last person to see him before he went into the Black Lodge.

When Harry stepped back and looked at it objectively like that, he could see that there was a distinct asymmetry in their relationship. Coop had become, paradoxically in his absence, the most important person in Harry’s life. For the past five years, Harry had had more sleepless nights than he could count, wondering how things would have turned out differently if he had stopped Coop from going into the Black Lodge, or had insisted on going with him, or had tried to mount some sort of rescue instead of sitting there in the woods like an idiot all day and all night waiting for him to come back. He had consumed more bottles of whiskey than he could count trying to forget what he had been unable to avoid hearing about the latest rampage of the Twin Peaks Killer. Over those five years, Coop had become like the negative space that defined a painting, the black hole in Harry’s mind that sucked in his every thought.

But after going through whatever ordeal he had experienced in the Black Lodge, Coop might not even remember Harry, or might only remember him vaguely as that guy he had worked a case with in Twin Peaks before everything went to hell. He might not expect or want Harry to be the person to visit him in the hospital and see him at his most vulnerable. Maybe Harry was massively overstepping his bounds here. Maybe being here was only hurting himself and not helping Coop, like Hawk had said. Maybe he should just go back to Missoula and let someone else be here for Coop.

Except – who would that be? He knew that someone as lovable as Coop must have many people who loved him. But all those people probably now thought that he was the recently deceased Twin Peaks Killer. As far as Harry knew, the only other person who cared about Coop and was aware of his true circumstances was Albert. And Albert was possibly the only person in the world who would be worse than Harry at dealing with the situation. That realization made the decision for him. Harry had to stay. He had to go into that hospital again that afternoon and see Coop, or the shell he had become. Even if Coop wasn’t aware of his presence, someone had to be there for him. And Harry wanted desperately to believe Dr. Sherman, that Coop’s current condition was temporary. He wouldn’t trade the opportunity to be able to see the real Coop again, to be able to actually talk to him, for anything in the world. It had been all he could think about for five years.

So Harry eventually found the strength to get up, shower, change, and otherwise prepare for 3 pm visiting hours. He felt sick to his stomach, so didn’t bother to leave the room for food. Instead, he just lounged around all morning and into the afternoon, watching the trucks roll by on the interstate outside his window. He told himself, over and over, that it wouldn’t be that bad this time, now that he knew what to expect.

On the drive to the hospital, Harry saw a coffee shop. On a sudden, possibly insane, whim, he stopped and went in. He ordered a black coffee to go.

Walking into the hospital lobby clutching the coffee cup, the receptionist didn’t need to even ask him his purpose. She just picked up the phone, and a security guard came a moment later to bring him through the metal detector. The guard took the lid off the coffee cup to take a sniff. Having passed the inspection, the coffee was returned to Harry, and the guard brought him through the metal detector to the double doors to the hallway to the visitation room.

Coop was in the exact same position on the same sofa he had been on yesterday. This time, Harry went over to him with a bit more confidence, although still moving slowly. He once again took up his position on the coffee table facing Coop, since it was the only vantage point where he was in Coop’s line of sight. He put the coffee cup on the table next to him and squeezed Coop’s hand in greeting.

“Hey, Coop,” he said, aiming to inject a casual tone into his voice. “I’m back. Sorry about yesterday.”

Coop maintained the same vacant gaze he had the day before, still not seeming aware of Harry’s presence. Harry tried to make eye contact, but it was impossible. Refusing to be discouraged, he took a test sip of the coffee to make sure it wasn’t too hot. “Do you want a cup of joe?” he asked, holding the cup tantalizingly close to Coop’s face. “I don’t think it’s a fancy roast or anything, but it tastes all right to me.” Coop didn’t respond to the coffee, which Harry couldn’t help but be discouraged by. He had trouble coming to terms with a world in which Coop was indifferent to coffee. Inspiration struck, and Harry took the lid off the cup so that the aroma would be stronger. Feeling awkward, he put the cup in Coop’s hands, holding his own hands around them to keep the cup steady. After a moment, as if by reflex, Coop’s hands started to move upward. Harry guided the cup along so the coffee wouldn’t spill, and Coop took a sip.

Harry laughed aloud. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed like that. “I thought you’d like that,” he said. Behind all those bandages covering his face, Coop was still in there somewhere. He still had the terrible empty eyes and blank expression, and maybe drinking was some sort of reflex to having a cup placed in his hands, so the level of joy Harry felt at this breakthrough was measured. But it had been so long since he had felt any joy at all that he felt drunk on it.

Harry continued to hold the cup steady while Coop took occasional sips. As they sat there, Harry kept talking, trying to pretend that he was holding a normal conversation with Coop. He told him about the coffee shop he had stopped in, and about his seedy motel room, and about the diner where he had eaten lunch the day before. After that, he kind of ran out of conversational topics. He didn’t want to expand what he was talking about either geographically or temporally beyond his past couple of days in Medical Lake, because other places and times held too many painful memories. So after he had exhausted his descriptions of his extremely mundane adventures in Medical Lake, he just sat quietly, until Coop had finished his coffee. Even after Coop was done, he kept holding his hands for a long time. Finally, as twilight started to fall outside, Harry squeezed Coop’s hand one last time and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As the security guard escorted Harry through the corridors on the way back to the lobby, Dr. Sherman poked her head out of her office door. “Harry,” she called after him. “Do you have a minute to talk?”

“Sure,” he said.

“I’ll see him out afterwards,” the doctor said to the guard, who left.

Harry entered the office and took a seat across from Dr. Sherman at her desk. “I’m glad to see you back here today,” she said, smiling. “I heard you didn’t stay long yesterday.”

“Just following your instructions. I got upset.”

She nodded. “That’s perfectly understandable. It’s a shock to see a loved one in that condition for the first time. But I take it your visit went better today?”

“Yeah.” Harry felt his mouth turn up in a smile. “He loves coffee. As in, the biggest coffee addict I’ve ever seen. So I brought him some, and he drank it.”

“That’s good. Smell and taste are very powerful senses for evoking emotional responses. So keep bringing him coffee if that’s something he enjoys. It may help him to reconnect to the external world more quickly.”

Harry was way ahead of her. He had already decided that he was not entering this hospital again without a cup of coffee in his hand. “I was afraid that there was nothing left of him,” he said. “After yesterday, when he didn’t even know I was there.”

“Just because he isn’t able to respond to you right now, doesn’t mean he doesn’t know you’re there.”

“So he does know? He sees me and hears me?”

“I can’t say for sure, but based on my experience with other patients, I think it’s likely.”

Well, that meant Harry was going to be in Medical Lake for a while. He would keep bringing Coop coffee and having one-sided conversations with him until he found his way back.

When he got back to his motel room, he immediately called Hawk, who seemed relieved to hear him sober for once. Harry gathered that he hadn’t been very coherent when Hawk had called the night before. But now he had good news to share for once. Hawk didn’t seem to seem to assign as much significance as Harry did to the progress made with the coffee, but he humored Harry anyway, agreeing that it was a good sign.

After getting off the phone, Harry stared at the half-full bottle of whiskey he still had on the table. He hadn’t felt the need to stop at the liquor store on the way back, and he didn’t feel the need to drink now. Quickly, while he had the willpower, he took the bottle into the bathroom and poured its contents out into the sink. He was going to need to get his drinking under control. He hadn’t been able to do it for himself, but Coop needed him now, and he would try his damnedest to do it for Coop.


	5. Chapter 5

_Day 4_

In the morning, Harry quit his job. He had called the Missoula PD with the intent of calling in sick for the third day in a row. But what came out of his mouth instead was his resignation, effective immediately. He made vague references to a family emergency as the reason.

When he hung up, he sat on the bed and stared at the phone, a little amazed at what he had just done. It was the second time in his life he had abruptly quit a job with no notice. But he felt no doubt now, the way he had about resigning as sheriff. Now, all he felt was relief. He didn’t want to go back to Missoula. The only reason he had gone there in the first place was because it wasn’t Twin Peaks, but that was an attribute it shared with almost the entire world.

There were practical matters to consider, of course. He had enough savings to be able to afford to not work for a few months, thanks to all the overtime he had worked the past few years. He had also gotten a bit of money from selling his house in Twin Peaks, although it had sat on the market for over three years and he had ended up with half of what it was worth. The serial killer running amok had not been good for the local real-estate market. Still, he had made his money go far in Missoula, since all he spent money on were his modest monthly bills and copious amounts of alcohol. He was sure he could last three months without a paycheck now, maybe longer if he really was going to quit drinking.

He would need to get a place to stay here. He had sure had about enough of this motel room, and he would need a kitchen if he was staying for a while. He would probably be able to find a cheap room to rent in Spokane, which was only a twenty-minute drive from Medical Lake. His place in Missoula was paid through the end of the month. Once he had a room in Spokane, he could make a trip to Missoula and retrieve whatever stuff he wanted to keep from his apartment there.

Decision made, he went off to shower, thinking maybe he would grab a Spokane paper and look over the rental listings in the classified ads over breakfast in that diner. He was starving this morning. It was a novelty to wake up feeling like a normal human being. That was a benefit of not drinking he had almost forgotten about. Anyway, he was glad to have a mission to occupy his time until 3 pm. He had no idea what his future held in the long term, but he could just take it one day at a time, waiting until visiting hours rolled around.

* * *

_Day 12_

Harry yawned as he went through the now-familiar security rituals at the hospital, Coop’s coffee cup in his hand. Today was moving day, and he was tired. The previous day, as soon as he was done visiting Coop, he had driven to Missoula and worked late into the night sorting through the stuff in his apartment to decide what to keep and what to get rid of. Then, this morning, he had taken the unwanted stuff to Goodwill, loaded up his truck with whatever he could fit (his couch, twin bed, a small fold-out table and chairs, TV, some clothes, some books, some outdoor gear), turned in his keys to his landlord, and driven back to Spokane. He had spent the afternoon unloading his stuff into his new apartment, which had been a hassle to do alone because it was a second-floor walk-up with a narrow staircase. But there hadn’t been much stuff to move, fortunately, and he had finished in time to stop by his usual coffee shop and still make it through the hospital doors at exactly 3 pm. The receptionist and security guards were getting used to seeing him every day, joking that they could set their watches by his arrival.

He followed the routine he had established for his visits. Coop was always seated on that same sofa when he arrived. Harry always sat on the coffee table and squeezed Coop’s hand as a greeting, then gave him his coffee. He had figured out that Coop was actually fine holding the cup on his own. Apparently, drinking coffee was as deep a reflex for him as breathing was for everyone else. As Coop drank the coffee, Harry would talk to him. Initially, he had found that difficult. He had never been much of a talker, but, before, Coop had always been more than capable of keeping a conversation going. Now that the burden was entirely on Harry, he had found it was best to go in with a plan of something to talk about. One day, he had given the play-by-play on the basketball game he had watched in his motel room the night before. Another time, he had listed off all the birds he had spotted on the lake outside the hospital, which then led him into a long digression on the distinguishing features for different types of waterfowl. He assumed that it didn’t really matter what he was saying, because Coop had still not responded in any way to anything other than coffee. But he felt it was important to keep talking anyway, just in case Coop was aware on some level that he was here.

Today, Harry took advantage of the exciting new conversational topic of his new apartment in Spokane. “It’s right in the middle of downtown,” he said as Coop took his first sip of the day. “There’s a coffee shop across the street. I haven’t been to it yet, so I don’t know if it’s any good. I’ll go there tomorrow morning and let you know.” The apartment was also upstairs from a bar, but Harry didn’t mention that. That had almost been a dealbreaker, but he didn’t know where else he was going to get a place that cheap, and he wanted to stretch his savings as far as possible. Besides, in a perverse way, he appreciated having the challenge of having the bar downstairs, as a sort of test of his resolve. He went on, “The apartment itself is pretty small, just the one room. The really funny thing is that the kitchen is in a closet. Seriously, you open a set of double doors, and there’s a stove and a sink and a mini-fridge inside this tiny closet. Then you just close it up again when you’re done cooking.” Harry shifted his position. His back was sore from dragging his couch up the stairs, and perching on the edge of the coffee table was not very comfortable. He continued describing the apartment. “The best part is the location. It’s less than a block from the Spokane River, where there’s a really nice park. When it gets warm enough to open the windows at night, I bet I’ll be able to hear Spokane Falls right from my room.” As he spoke, Harry moved off of the coffee table and onto the sofa next to Coop, trying to get into a more comfortable position for his back. He always sat on the coffee table so he would be in Coop’s line of sight, but it’s not like Coop ever made eye contact with him anyway, and his back was really staring to bother him. “The falls are really –”

Harry broke off mid-sentence. As he had moved from the coffee table to the sofa, Coop had turned his head toward him as if following the sound of his voice. “Coop?” Harry placed his hands over Coop’s, which were still clutching the coffee cup. “Coop, you there?”

Coop’s eyes were still unfocused, and he made no other sign that he was aware of Harry’s presence. But he kept his bandaged face turned toward Harry. That was the first time Harry had seen Coop turn his head at all, and it definitely seemed like he had done it because he was, on some level, listening to Harry. Maybe all these inane one-sided conversations were paying off. Elated, Harry went on talking about the apartment and the neighborhood and the river and the waterfall until Coop had finished his coffee. “You can come see it when you’re better,” Harry finished, and, as always, squeezed Coop’s hand again in farewell. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

As the guard escorted him back toward the lobby, Harry saw that Dr. Sherman’s door was open. He tapped on it, and she smiled and waved him in. Sometimes on his visits, if she saw him in the hallways, she would flag him down for some chitchat about how everything was going. Although he appreciated her positive attitude, he sometimes felt that she was trying a bit too hard to be encouraging, so he usually endured their conversations politely. This was the first time he had voluntarily sought her out.

“Hey, doc,” he said, sliding into the chair.

“Hi, Harry. How was your visit today?”

“Good. He turned his head to look at me.”

“He made eye contact?”

“No, not exactly. But I moved while I was talking, and he turned his head to follow me.”

Dr. Sherman smiled. “That’s good progress. It shows that he’s getting closer to being ready to engage with the outside world.”

That was the frustrating thing about his conversations with Dr. Sherman. She always said that Coop was making good progress, so he never knew whether the things he thought were a big deal, like the coffee and the head-turning, really were a big deal. “How long do you think it will be before he can, you know…”

“I know you’re eager for him to move into the stage of verbal communication. And he will get there. But there’s no set timetable.”

She always said that, too. Harry fiddled with the decorative wicker basket she kept on her desk. “Is there anything we can do to sort of speed things up?”

“Everything you’re already doing is helping immensely. I wish all my patients had a family member like you. I’ve seen how much support from loved ones can make a difference.”

Harry nodded. Well, he had told Coop he would try the coffee shop across the street from his new apartment in the morning. Then he would have another conversation topic ready for the afternoon visit. He would read the damn phonebook aloud if that’s what it took. Just as long as somewhere, deep inside, Coop was listening, if not to his words then to his voice.


	6. Chapter 6

_Day 15_

Harry got a shock when he walked around the sofa in the visitation room and came face-to-face with Coop. The bandages had been removed. Now, Harry could see the full extent of the damage to Coop’s face, and it was even worse than he had imagined. He understood now why Hawk had told him that no one would recognize Coop from the photos of the Twin Peaks Killer. Every inch of Coop’s face was covered with angry red gashes interspersed with pink new skin. There were even chunks of flesh missing from his nose and chin and eyebrow, and gouges in his cheek where a sharp object had been dug in. It looked as though he had tried to tear his own face off and damn near succeeded.

As Harry stood, frozen in horror, Dr. Sherman came running into the visitation room. “Harry, I’m sorry,” she said breathlessly. “We took the bandages off this morning. I asked the guards not to let you in until I had a chance to warn you, but I guess someone didn’t get the memo, and I was dealing with an emergency on one of the units –”

“It’s okay,” Harry said numbly. He stared at Coop’s ravaged face, feeling sick. “Why would he do that to himself?”

Dr. Sherman glanced over at Coop. “We shouldn’t discuss this in front of him,” she told Harry. “Why don’t you come into my office and we can talk there?”

Harry fiddled with the coffee cup. He didn’t want to run off and leave Coop again. In case Coop was aware of anything that was going on, Harry wanted to reassure him that he wasn’t scared off by the facial scars. “Can I visit with him first?” he asked.

“Of course. Just stop by my office when you’re done. I’ll wait there for you.” Dr. Sherman left the room.

Harry sat on the sofa next to Coop, rather than in his usual spot on the coffee table. He didn’t feel capable of looking directly at Coop right now. “Hey, Coop,” he said, squeezing his hand and giving him the coffee. He had had today’s conversation topic picked out before coming to the hospital, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was now. He stared out the window, where the late afternoon sun was shining on the lake. “You know, the lake is supposed to have healing properties,” he said, remembering a conversation he had had with Dr. Sherman during one of their little small-talk sessions last week. “Dr. Sherman told me that her people, the Spokane tribe, always used the lake water and mud for medical purposes. That’s where the lake got its name. I guess they used to have health resorts here too, and that’s why they chose this site for the hospital.”

Coop had turned his face toward Harry as if listening, as was his typical custom nowadays, although he still hadn’t shown any other apparent reaction to Harry. Now, without the bandages as a barrier, his empty eyes looked more terrible than ever, set against his destroyed face. Harry abruptly ran out of both things to say and voice to say them with. “Sorry, Coop,” he said, putting his arm around Coop’s shoulders. “I guess I’m not feeling very talkative today.” Slowly, so as not to startle Coop, he leaned his head down against Coop’s shoulder. Coop tolerated the contact, so Harry pulled his legs up onto the sofa so he could lean against him while Coop drank his coffee. They stayed like that until the sky started to darken.

On his way out, Harry stopped at Dr. Sherman’s office as requested. “Harry, I’d like to apologize again,” she said, looking remorseful. “I failed in my responsibility to prepare you for that.”

“Don’t worry about it, Doc. Nothing could have prepared me for that,” Harry said, dropping into his usual chair. “I just can’t believe he did that to himself.” He wondered if maybe Coop hadn’t done it to himself, if something had done it to him while he was in the Black Lodge. But no, Hawk said his guys had seen Coop attacking his own face with, what had it been? Sticks and a sharp rock? Harry could ask Hawk for more details, but he had already heard more than he wanted to. He had enough nightmare fuel as it was.

“Psychosis can lead to some pretty extreme behavior,” Dr. Sherman said helplessly, seemingly aware that nothing she could say on the matter would be reassuring. “Disfiguring injuries are themselves traumatic, so once he’s able to communicate verbally again, this is something we’ll have to address.”

“You said something about plastic surgery?”

“Yes, facial reconstruction really has come a long way. It will certainly be something to consider once he’s in a better mental state.”

Harry nodded. “Anything else?” he asked dully. He had given up on asking her for predictions on when Coop might come out of the catatonic state.

“I just wanted to say that you handled that really well. It must have been quite a shock to see him like that, but you were able to remain calm and stay with him. That’s the kind of support he’s going to need to get through this.”

After she had escorted him back to the lobby, Harry exited the hospital and started across the parking lot, then stopped. He was shaking, and he didn’t feel up to the drive back to Spokane just yet. He stared out at the lake, its waters gleaming in the last rays of the setting sun. Just down the road from the hospital entrance, there was a small waterfront park, so he walked in that direction. Following a small path that led down to the lakeshore, he stopped at the water’s edge, where the breeze was stirring the reeds and sending waves lapping gently against the rocks. He stayed there until it became fully dark and the lights from the hospital were reflected in the lake. Before he left, he crouched down and placed his hands against the water’s surface, watching the ripples spread out. Maybe the Spokane tribe was right, and he could imbue himself with the water’s healing power and bring some of that power back to Coop.

When he arrived back in Spokane and parked in front of his building, his feet carried him to the bar on the first floor rather than up the stairs to his apartment, as if he had no say in the matter. It turned out that living above a bar had, as he had suspected, not been the best idea. He hadn’t been able to resist the temptation for even a week. Resigned, he ordered a whiskey and sat at the bar. Every time he blinked, he saw Coop’s scarred face, as if the image was burned into his retinas. He had to drink enough to make that image go away, or at least make it hurt less.

He was, of course, devastated that Coop had hurt himself like that, and the deeper devastation was that something had happened to Coop that would make him do that. And then there was the fact that Coop had always been so damn good-looking. It seemed superficial to care about that, but at the same time, it was hard to separate Coop’s personality from his handsome face. His confidence and charm and charisma had always just shone through his features, and now that his face was destroyed, Harry couldn’t help but wonder if those qualities had been destroyed too. So Harry drank his whiskey, and then another, and another, losing count before he felt numb enough to stumble upstairs and fall into bed.

* * *

_Day 23_

Harry had not yet resorted to reading the phone book, but he had gotten a library card so he could find books to read aloud to Coop during their visits. Ever since the bandages had come off, he had found it harder to wing it with conversational topics, because he would find himself staring at one of the wounds on Coop’s face, trying not to imagine what object had caused it or how much it must have hurt. Then he would get distressed and trail off and have trouble picking up the thread of whatever mundane thing he had been saying. So reading aloud was a good way for Coop to hear his voice without him having to think of things to talk about. Right now, he was making his way through a book about Tibet he had found.

When it was time to go, he closed the book and said, as always, “See you tomorrow, Coop.” He squeezed Coop’s hand, as always, as his way of saying goodbye. But this time, Coop squeezed back. Harry froze, putting his other hand over Coop’s. “Coop?” he said, trying once again to make eye contact. Still nothing on that front, Coop’s eyes were as unfocused as ever. But Harry was sure he had felt Coop return the hand-squeeze. He stayed there for a long time, clutching Coop’s hand between his own. He felt like he was trying to drag a drowning man out of the ocean. But to no avail. He got no further response from Coop.

Finally, the security guard stuck his head in the door of the room and told Harry that visiting hours were over. Harry squeezed Coop’s hand one more time, and again got a return squeeze. Well, he supposed that was progress, but all he felt was disappointment that he hadn’t gotten anything more. As he left, Harry reflected that a few weeks ago, he would have been elated at that breakthrough. He would have rushed to tell Dr. Sherman and called Hawk as soon as he got home. But now he just felt exhausted, after walking into the visitation room every day hoping to see something other than a vacant stare on Coop’s face, hoping to hear Coop’s voice. He wasn’t sure he even remembered what Coop’s voice sounded like.


	7. Chapter 7

_Day 30_

Harry finished reading Coop the book on Tibet. He supposed he would have to go to the library tomorrow morning to return that book and grab another one. As always, he told Coop he’d be back tomorrow, and they did their customary exchange of hand squeezes.

As the guard led him through the corridor, Harry saw that Dr. Sherman was in her office. He hadn’t been planning to meet with her, but he felt a sudden urge for some reassurance, even if was her relentlessly upbeat and possibly meaningless kind. He knocked on her door, and as usual she smiled in greeting and waved the guard away.

“How was your visit today, Harry?” she asked as he sat down.

“Okay, I guess.” He paused for a moment, then blurted out what had been on his mind all day. “It’s been a month.”

Dr. Sherman nodded. “Yes, it has. Now, you know there’s no set timetable for recovery from brief psychotic disorder. The average time is between a week and a month, but there is no strict upper limit for how long it can take. Dan is making good progress in gradually becoming more responsive, and I’m confident that that progress will continue.”

Hearing that they were already at the upper limit of the average recovery time and looking at what seemed to him to be a distinct lack of progress, Harry felt thoroughly dispirited. “I just want him to come back,” he said bleakly.

“He will. Don’t give up on him.”

“I won’t,” Harry snapped, more harshly than he intended. That was true, he never would. This whole ordeal reminded him uncomfortably of waiting in the woods for Coop to return from the Black Lodge. He had been determined not to give up on Coop back then too, but waiting and wishing hadn’t been enough.

Back in his apartment that night, the phone rang. Harry answered it, expecting it to be Hawk, the only person who ever called him. Instead, it was a different familiar voice. “This is Albert Rosenfield. Remember me?”

“Yes, unfortunately.” Harry hadn’t spoken to Albert in five years, but he fell immediately back into his old antipathy with him, like shrugging into a old sweatshirt. “How did you get this number?”

“From Sheriff Hill. Don’t hold it against him, he only capitulated under much duress.”

“And what do you want?” Of course Albert had chosen tonight to call, when Harry really, really didn’t feel like dealing with him. He had probably sensed from across the country that tonight would be the absolute worst night to call and planned accordingly.

“Mostly just to inquire what the hell you think you’re doing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Visiting Coop in the hospital every day. Do you really think that’s helping him?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” Despite his own frustration at the apparent lack of progress, Harry felt defensive on Coop’s behalf. “He’s doing a lot better now—”

“Yes, yes, Sheriff Hill filled me in on the coffee and the head-turning and the hand-holding. You’re deluding yourself, which I don’t really care about. But I do care about Coop, and it’s time you just left him alone.”

“Like you left him alone?” Even though Harry was relieved that Albert wasn’t around, he also felt angry that Albert had abandoned Coop, with no visits and not even a call until now. No matter what Harry was feeling, when he was talking to Albert, somehow the initial feeling always morphed into being pissed at Albert beyond all reason. “Someone has to be here for him,” Harry continued.

Albert’s response was icy. “No, they don’t, because he is locked inside his own head with no idea of anything that’s going on in the outside world. The Coop that you and I knew is gone, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can go on with whatever semblance of a life you have, and the sooner Coop can be left in peace with whatever semblance of a life he has left.”

“He’s not gone. His doctor diagnosed this as a brief psychotic episode. She says it’s temporary—”

“She doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about. Not her fault, I’m sure she’s as fine a psychiatrist as eastern Washington State has to offer, but she doesn’t know what really happened to him. She’s never seen anything like this before, because what Coop went through is something that no one else has ever gone through. It’s not in the fucking DSM-IV.”

“You’re the one who doesn’t know what you’re talking about.” Despite his words, Harry felt some doubt. It was true, Dr. Sherman didn’t have all the facts about what Coop had been through. Now that he thought about it, it did seem unlikely that psychiatric science would be equipped to treat something as resolutely unscientific as the ordeal Coop had gone through. Still, he kept arguing with Albert, partly out of habit, partly because he desperately wanted to believe that Albert was wrong. “You haven’t seen him—”

“ _You_ didn’t see him.” Albert’s voice was as hard as Harry had ever heard it. “I was there that night, when they found him in the woods trying to saw off his own face with a sharp rock. That was an hour after we’d shot and killed him, as far as we knew at the time. You weren’t there. Thanks for that, by the way. So nice of you to run off and leave us to deal with the mess you left in your own damn town.”

“Fuck you.” Harry paced around his apartment, on the verge of punching a hole in his wall. “I’m not giving up on him.”

Albert snorted. “Very moving. Look, I’m not surprised that you’re trying to assuage your guilty conscience—”

“What the fuck do you mean by that?”

“I am referring,” Albert enunciated very clearly, “to the fact that you were the one who had the brilliant idea to let Coop go into the Black Lodge alone in the first place.”

Harry stopped short in his pacing. “That wasn’t – I didn’t—”

“That wasn’t you with him that night? You weren’t the last person to see him before he went in?”

For the first time in an argument with Albert, Harry had no response.

“Listen,” Albert said, his voice a bit softer. Maybe even he had realized how much of an asshole he was being. “I’m not saying it was your fault. I’m sure Coop didn’t give you much of a choice. But you still feel responsible, and that’s why you can’t let him go.”

“That’s not why.” Harry had found his voice again. “Thanks for the call, Albert. I’ll give your advice all the consideration it deserves.” He slammed the phone down.

Immediately, he headed downstairs to the bar and ordered some whiskey. He didn’t even feel conflicted about losing his resolve this time. He just wanted to stop himself from replaying the conversation with Albert in his head, mostly because he was afraid Albert was right. Not about Harry acting out of guilt. He did, of course, feel responsible for what had happened to Coop, and had thought up a thousand scenarios of things he could have done differently that might have resulted in a different outcome. But that wasn’t why he was refusing to give up on Coop now. His only motivation was that he wanted Coop back, pure and simple.

But Harry was afraid that Albert was right about Coop being gone completely. He had never questioned Dr. Sherman’s diagnosis or her expectation that Coop would recover. She seemed like a competent doctor, and what she had told him again and again was so reassuring that he had wanted to believe it. But Harry hadn’t considered the novelty of Coop’s situation until Albert had so helpfully pointed it out. Maybe what looked to Dr. Sherman like brief psychotic disorder was really something more serious. After all, it had been a month, which was stretching the definition of “brief”. Maybe the reason Coop was in a catatonic state was not as a temporary response to trauma, but rather because of permanent damage to his mind. Maybe his essence or soul or whatever had never left the Black Lodge and all that was left was an empty shell. Or maybe he had been destroyed inside by whatever he had gone through, just as his face was destroyed on the outside.

Harry drank whiskey after whiskey. Even in his inebriated state, he could tell he was making the bartender and some of his fellow patrons uneasy with the speed and seriousness with which he was drinking. It was a Friday night, and the bar was crowded. He had groups of people packed up against him on the stools to either side, and he caught a couple of them looking askance.

Eventually, the bartender cut him off. Harry explained, in what he thought was a very reasonable and measured tone, that he lived right upstairs, so he wasn’t driving, and there was no reason for him to stop drinking. The bartender told him to keep his voice down, that he was disturbing the other customers. Losing his temper, Harry expressed his opinion about what the other customers could do. He wasn’t usually an angry drunk, but contact with Albert always seemed to infect him with hostility. The guy sitting at the stool next to Harry asked him to watch his language, the guy’s girlfriend was getting upset. The bartender told Harry to leave, and Harry refused. The good Samaritan sitting next to him put one hand on his shoulder, as if to escort him out of the place, and Harry lost it. He stood up from the stool and landed one good punch on the guy’s face. Then everything was chaos, with people yelling and screaming. The guy’s buddy jumped in, and one of them hit Harry a couple of times in the face while the other tried to hold his arms back. The bartender and a couple of other customers forcibly separated Harry from the guys he was fighting, and Harry struggled against their grip. He could feel blood trickling out of his split lip, and his head was throbbing.

Someone must have called the cops, or maybe the officers had overheard the commotion while going by, because after just a couple of minutes Harry was getting arrested. That was a new experience for him, being on the other side of the law. As he was being led away in handcuffs, Harry had the thought, through his drunken haze, that he had been looking for a distraction, and this had at least gotten the job done.


	8. Chapter 8

_Day 31_

Harry woke up in the drunk tank, at county lock-up. In his cell were a couple of other guys sleeping off the night’s indiscretions, each of whom looked almost as bad as he felt.

It was a long day. The jail seemed to be full of new arrivals, and the county employees did not seem all that motivated to get them processed quickly or share much information about their status. As the morning turned to afternoon, Harry kept an anxious eye on the wall clock across the hallway from his cell. He would be fine with posting bail and appearing in court later to face the consequences of his actions, but he really, really needed to get out by 3 pm. He hadn’t missed a visit with Coop yet, and he had told him that he would be back today as usual.

Finally, he was allowed his phone call. He called Hawk, explaining the situation somewhat sheepishly. Hawk listened with equanimity, then said he would call the Spokane County sheriff, with whom he was acquainted. Harry vaguely recalled meeting the guy a couple of times himself at regional law-enforcement conferences a few years ago. In his desperation to get out, Harry was not averse to taking advantage of his law-enforcement connections to smooth things out.

The afternoon dragged on. In despair, Harry watched 3 pm come and go. Well, visiting hours at the hospital went until 6, so maybe he could still make it, he would just be later than normal. He wished he hadn’t had to use his one phone call to contact Hawk. He supposed that he could have asked Hawk to call Dr. Sherman at the hospital, but he didn’t really want her to know about this anyway. A horrible thought struck him. If he had criminal charges filed against him, would that affect his visitor privileges at the hospital? What if they never let him in to see Coop again?

6 pm also came and went. Now that there was no hope of making it to the hospital today, Harry stopped watching the clock and instead lay down on the cot, staring at the cinder-block walls of the cell. He was angrier at himself right now than he had ever been at anyone. He vowed, with renewed determination, to stop drinking. He couldn’t believe that, through his own stupid and pathetic actions, he had missed a visit with Coop, and could potentially lose the right to ever visit him again. What would he do if he was denied visitor access? He couldn’t imagine the pain of not even being able to see Coop. Getting to interact with Coop, even in such a minimal way, was the highlight of his every day, the only thing that got him out of bed in the morning. And what would happen to Coop without him? Coop needed him, Harry felt more certain of that than ever.

It was after 8 pm when he was finally released. He was told that the guy he had assaulted had declined to press charges, and that the county had also decided against citing him for drunk and disorderly conduct. So Harry was in the clear. He assumed that someone in the sheriff’s office had pressured the guy not to file charges. That was almost certainly the result of Hawk vouching for him with the sheriff, and maybe also because of his own law-enforcement history. Whatever the reason, he was grateful for the reprieve, and swore to whatever powers were listening that he wouldn’t screw it up by making such a dumb mistake again.

When he got home, he called Hawk to thank him for his intervention and to apologize for the trouble he’d caused. Hawk listened patiently, then told him he needed to get help. He was probably right about that, but Coop needed help more than Harry did right now. Harry promised that he would stay away from alcohol, and this time he meant it.

* * *

_Day 32_

At 3 pm, Harry walked into the hospital lobby, coffee cup in hand. He knew something was wrong when the receptionist, who usually just waved him through to the security checkpoint, stopped him. “Wait here,” she said, reaching for the phone. “Dr. Sherman told me to call her if you came today.”

_If_. The implication stung, like Harry had just chosen to take a day off from visiting. But in fairness, it wasn’t like Dr. Sherman knew otherwise.

When the doctor walked into the lobby, her gaze went immediately to the black eye Harry was sporting. “Harry, what happened?” she asked, looking as if she maybe didn’t really want to know.

“Nothing major.” Harry waved her question off. “What’s going on? Is he okay?”

“He’s not hurt or anything.” Harry felt a tightening in his chest, because that wasn’t a _yes, he’s okay_. Dr. Sherman went on, “He’s had a little setback in his condition.”

How could there be a setback? How could he be even worse off than he already was? “What do you mean?” Harry asked warily.

“He’s refusing to leave his room. He’s been in there all day.”

Harry thought for a moment. Could it be that Coop had been expecting him to show up yesterday and was disappointed that he never came? He hoped that’s all it was, both because it would mean that Coop really was aware of his comings and goings, and because it was a problem easily remedied now that Harry was back. “Well, maybe when I go in to see him, I can –”

“Harry.” Dr. Sherman interrupted gently. “You can’t go in to see him today.”

“Why not?” Harry felt dawning horror at missing visits two days in a row.

“Because patients have the right to refuse visitors at any time.”

“He’s not refusing me. How would you even know if he was? He can’t talk.”

“We can’t use physical force on patients unless absolutely necessary for their safety or that of others,” she explained. “Before, he was willing to be led into the visitation room, which we interpret as implied consent to receive visitors. Now, since he’s showing resistance to leaving his room, we have to respect his wishes.”

“Well, let me see him in his room then,” Harry said desperately.

“I can’t. Visitors aren’t allowed on the units.” She looked sympathetic, which somehow made him even angrier at her. “It’s counterintuitive, but this may actually be a good sign. Catatonic patients are typically very passive. This could mean he’s beginning to reassert his autonomy.”

Harry wanted to yell at her, frustrated that she always insisted there was a silver lining to every damn thundercloud. He couldn’t see any good in this. The conclusion his mind kept leaping to was that, on some level, Coop thought Harry had given up on him, and so Coop had given up on everything. Taking a deep breath so as to remain calm, he said, “He probably thinks I abandoned him, because I didn’t make it yesterday. I tried, but something came up. So I need to see him so he knows I’m back now.”

“Not today, Harry. I’m sorry.” She glanced at his black eye again. “You look like you’ve had a bit of a rough time anyway. Just go home, get some rest, and come back tomorrow.”

Harry didn’t trust himself to say anything else. The last thing he needed was to cause a scene and once again jeopardize his visitor status. So he turned and left without saying another word.

He threw away the coffee cup he had brought in the garbage can by the door. He was so angry, he had to walk a loop around the entire lake before he was calm enough to drive back to Spokane. When he got home, he went straight upstairs to his apartment, not daring to even look at the bar. He hadn’t been strong enough to resist it the day before, and he was paying the price now.

* * *

_Day 33_

The receptionist once again stopped and made him wait while she called Dr. Sherman. That was probably not a good sign. Sure enough, when the doctor arrived, she didn’t even wait for Harry to ask before informing him, “He’s still refusing to leave his room. And he hasn’t eaten anything all day today or yesterday. If that keeps up, we’re going to have to take drastic action that I would like to avoid.” She looked openly concerned, and that was unusual enough to send Harry’s own level of fear through the roof. He nearly crushed the cardboard cup of coffee he was holding.

“Doc,” he said, “you have to let me see him.” He was preparing to marshal his arguments, but she cut him off.

“I am,” she said, then stepped closer to him and dropped her voice. “Listen, I’m going to take you to his room. You can’t stay long, just for five minutes or so. Needless to say, this is a rule violation. I’ve told the on-duty nurses and security staff in the unit what’s going on, but if an administrator happens to come onto the floor and sees you, there will be hell to pay.”

“If that happens, I’ll say I snuck in, that I stole your security badge or something.” Harry figured that was the least he could do, since she was sticking her neck out for him and Coop.

She smiled. “Thanks. Don’t worry, it probably won’t happen. Administrators hate coming into the units.”

Harry followed her through a different set of doors than the ones he usually accessed through the metal detector. Instead, they went through a staff entrance, which had the same double-entry security system as the visitor entrance. They were now in a different part of the hospital than he had seen before, in one of the treatment units for patients. The only expectation he had had of what a psychiatric hospital looked like had been shaped by movies, with a vague idea that there would be straitjackets and padded rooms all over the place. But there was none of that. Instead, it looked somewhat like a normal hospital, with staff walking around wearing scrubs and hanging out at nurses’ stations. But instead of medical equipment and examination rooms, they went past a series of common areas similar to the visitation room, with couches, armchairs, tables, TVs, bookcases. Patients sat alone or in small groups. Harry caught glimpses of some patients who seemed agitated or were talking to themselves, and a few who seemed disconnected in the same way that Coop was. But most of them were normal-looking people doing normal things like conversing with each other, watching TV, reading, playing cards. Even though Harry was unhappy with the situation, in a way he was glad that he was at least getting the opportunity to see what the main part of the hospital looked like, to see it wasn’t the horror show he had envisioned.

They turned down a long side corridor lined with doors to patient rooms. Dr. Sherman stopped in front of one, which had its door open. Inside was a bed set against one wall and a desk and plastic chair against the other. There was a window, which had its glass recessed and protected with metal slats. Other than the slats over the window, it could have been a college dorm room. It was nothing like the padded room or prison cell Harry had feared.

Coop was sitting on the bed, with his back against the wall. He was, as always, staring straight ahead, unmoving. “I’ll come get you in five minutes,” Dr. Sherman said, and left.

Harry went and sat on the bed next to Coop. “Hey, Coop,” he said. He took Coop’s hand and squeezed it, gratified to get the usual return squeeze. “I’m sorry I haven’t been here the past couple of days. I wanted to come, but I couldn’t. But I’m back now.” Harry was about to give Coop his coffee, but stopped. As he had been doing lately, Coop had turned his face toward Harry while he was speaking. But whereas before Coop’s eyes had remained unfocused, now his gaze was fixed right on Harry. “Coop?” Harry said, hardly daring to hope.

“Harry.” Coop’s voice was soft, like he had forgotten how to use it. But Harry was sure he had heard it. He hurriedly put the coffee cup down on the bedside table and knelt on the bed, gripping Coop’s arms.

“Coop?” Harry said again. “Are you with me?”

“Harry.” This time, Coop spoke louder, so there was no doubt about what he had said. And how could Harry have thought he had forgotten what Coop’s voice sounded like? This was unmistakably it, the sound Harry had wanted to hear more than anything else for five years. And now that Coop’s eyes were no longer empty, now that they were looking back at him, he looked more like himself, despite his disfigured face.

Harry felt tears well up in his eyes. He wrapped his arms around Coop and buried his face against his shoulder. At first, Coop didn’t move. But, as Harry let out a sob, he felt Coop’s arms gently encircle him, with Coop’s first instinct after emerging from a catatonic state apparently being to comfort _him_.

Over Coop’s shoulder, Harry saw Dr. Sherman walk up to the door to the room. She stopped, looking surprised, then delighted. She signaled the number five to Harry and then tapped her wrist. She was giving them five more minutes. Harry nodded gratefully to her, and she left again.

Once he had gotten himself under control a bit, Harry pulled back so that he could look at Coop again. Coop’s facial expression was completely neutral, but he was still looking right at Harry. “I’m glad you’re back, Coop,” Harry said, in case that wasn’t obvious. Coop didn’t say anything else, but he looked as though he understood what Harry was saying, which was a big improvement.

Just then, Dr. Sherman came back. She looked anxious, glancing over her shoulder like she expected the full hospital administrative staff to come marching down the hallway at any moment. So Harry took Coop’s hand and said, “I have to go now. I’ll be back tomorrow. But you have to let them take you to the visitation room. And you need to eat, okay?” Coop nodded. “Oh, yeah, here’s your coffee,” Harry said, grabbing it from the bedside table and handing it to him with a shaky grin. As Harry left with Dr. Sherman, he looked back, seeing Coop sipping from the coffee cup and gazing out his window as if he had never seen the view before.

Dr. Sherman hurried Harry back through the unit to the entrance they had come through, where she swiped them out. Back in the lobby, she leaned against the reception desk, seeming relieved that they had gotten away with their little illicit mission. “Well, that looked like some major progress in there,” she said, smiling at him.

For once, Harry agreed with her. “He said my name. Twice. And he looked right at me.”

“That is wonderful, Harry. I only observed a bit of your interaction, but I saw from the way his eyes tracked and how he responded to your words that he’s no longer in catatonia. But,” she said, with a tone of caution, “remember, this doesn’t mean that he’s suddenly all better. There will likely be a period of adjustment when he still has minimal verbal expression. It’s important to let him go through that transition at his own pace. Eventually, he will likely have questions about what’s happened, especially since the ordeal he went through occurred over such a long expanse of time. You should answer his question honestly, but wait until he asks. Don’t overwhelm him with too much information at once. Even though he’s no longer paralyzed by his trauma, he still has a lot of healing to do.”

“Got it,” Harry said. He understood that Coop had a long way to go, but it suddenly seemed a lot more feasible that he would get there. Now that Harry could have actual conversations with Coop, he would be able to help him with whatever he was going through. And Harry knew that he himself would be in a much better mental state, now that he wouldn’t have to make himself sick with worry about whether there was anything left of Coop at all. Just those few moments of seeing Coop’s eyes meet his and hearing Coop’s voice had given Harry more strength than he had had for as long as he could remember.

So he said good night to Dr. Sherman, thanking her profusely for going the extra mile to help him reach Coop, and went home. He had a hard time sleeping that night, but only because he couldn’t wait for 3 pm the next day so he could talk to Coop again.


	9. Chapter 9

_Day 34_

Right before leaving for Medical Lake, Harry stopped at a fancy bakery near his apartment in Spokane. He wanted to bring Coop something special to celebrate. In the display case next to the cash register was a freshly baked pie. Cherry. Harry took that as a sign. He ordered a slice and a coffee to go.

Coop was in his usual spot on the sofa in the visitation room. “Hey, Coop,” Harry said as he came up from behind, and Coop turned to look directly at him. That was enough to make Harry break out in a smile. He sat next to Coop and handed him his coffee. Coop took a sip immediately. “I brought you something else today,” Harry said, giving Coop the pie slice and a plastic fork. Coop stared down at it as if unsure what it was. “Cherry pie,” Harry prompted. “Your favorite, right?” Coop slowly took a bite of the pie, and the taste seemed to spark something in him. He took several more bites in quick succession, then seemed to savor the last remaining bits. Harry grinned as he watched. He decided he was going to bring Coop pie every day.

Coop still hadn’t said anything yet, but Harry wasn’t too worried about that. Dr. Sherman had said that it might take a while for him to get back to his old talkative self. Besides, just the way Coop was now making eye contact and responding to things Harry said was enough assurance that the previous night hadn’t been some fluke. Now that Harry wasn’t desperately trying to throw Coop a lifeline to pull him back to reality, he didn’t feel pressure to try to fill the time by babbling about insignificant things. He was, instead, content to sit quietly beside Coop and wait for him to take the lead on the conversation for once.

Long after Coop had finished the pie, as he was getting near to the end of his coffee, he finally spoke up. “How long has it been?”

Harry wished he didn’t have to answer that. “Five years.” He watched Coop’s face, looking for any sign of emotion, for sadness or anger that he had had five years of his youth stolen from him.

But Coop’s expression didn’t change. He just nodded, as if that made perfect sense, and didn’t say anything else for the rest of Harry’s visit.

* * *

_Day 35_

When Harry passed by Dr. Sherman’s office on the way to the visitation room, she flagged him down and suggested that he and Coop spend the day’s visit outside in the garden, since it was such a nice day. Harry hadn’t even realized there was an outdoor space where visits were allowed, but he agreed readily. He met up with Coop in the visitation room. Instead of the hospital gown, Coop was now wearing sweats and sneakers. In preparation for the outdoor excursion, the hospital staff has also given him a sun hat. Dr. Sherman had mentioned that he had to be careful to avoid sunburns while his facial injuries were healing. The outfit certainly didn’t look like something Coop would normally wear, but it was a big improvement over the hospital gown. Now he looked a bit ridiculous, but at least he didn’t look sick.

Their security guard led them down a corridor Harry hadn’t been to before. At the end of the hall was a set of double-entry doors like all the others that led into and out of the hospital. The guard let them out into a courtyard. It was enclosed on three sides by the walls of the building. On the open side, there was a twelve-foot tall chain-link fence crowned with barbed wire, through which the lake could be seen. The courtyard did have a rather nice garden, and patients and their visitors were milling about. Some were strolling around, others sat on benches, and a few were digging up weeds and watering the plants. It was, as Dr. Sherman had said, a beautiful spring day, the warmest of the year so far, and the sun felt good.

Harry and Coop walked slowly along the garden paths. Harry noticed that Coop seemed a bit unsteady on his feet, maybe because he wasn’t used to walking, maybe because his legs were weak from his long confinement. So Harry grabbed Coop’s elbow as they walked to help steady him. The garden was supremely pleasant, with daffodils and crocuses already in bloom, bumblebees buzzing around, and a butterfly flitting by. Coop stopped to examine every single flower and insect, as if amazed that such beautiful things existed.

When they had circled through the entire garden, Harry sat them down on a bench at the far end, which had a view of the lake through the chain-link fence. He gave Coop the coffee and pie he had brought with him. The lake was close enough that they could hear waves lapping against the shoreline every time the gentle breeze picked up. Harry found it sad that the water, with its purported medical benefits, was separated by metal and barbed wire from the people who most needed healing. Of course, with its potentially suicidal patients, he understood that the hospital couldn’t allow access to the lakeshore, but it seemed tragic to have those healing waters so close and yet so inaccessible.

Coop suddenly spoke up with his first utterance of the day. “Where is this place?”

“It’s a hospital.” Harry wondered if he should provide any more information than that. The question the day before had been when, now it was where, so he guessed it was good that Coop was getting oriented in time and space.

But Coop shook his head. “I know. I mean, are we still in Washington?”

“Oh. Yeah, this is Medical Lake, right outside Spokane.” Harry was glad to have an easy question to answer.

Coop sat in silence for a few minutes after that, staring out at the lake. Then he said, “You keep coming back. Every day.”

“Yeah, of course.” Harry was excited that he was having an actual conversation with Coop, in that it was a back-and-forth exchange rather than the smattering of words Coop had spoken in the past two days.

“Don’t you have to work?”

“Uh, no. I’m kind of between jobs right now.”

“You’re not sheriff anymore?” Coop sounded incredulous, as if this information was the most shocking thing he had learned so far. It was, Harry realized, the first time Coop’s tone had had any expression in it at all.

“No. Hawk is. I left Twin Peaks—” Harry paused as he wondered how much he wanted to go into _that_ – “a while back,” he finished lamely.

Coop wasn’t fooled by that. “How long ago?” he asked, sounding as if he already knew the answer.

Harry sighed. Simple honest answers to all questions, that’s what Dr. Sherman had advised. “Five years ago.”

Coop stared down into his coffee cup. He didn’t say anything else for the rest of the visit. On the way back, Harry made him stop and look at the flowers again, but Coop didn’t seem to find them quite as appealing now.


	10. Chapter 10

_Day 36_

Harry was once again stopped by Dr. Sherman on his way in. Yesterday, before leaving, he had told her about Coop’s interest in the flowers. Now, she suggested that they could spend today’s visit working in the garden, since it was another nice day. Harry figured that she was trying to get Coop to engage with the world, and he was more than willing to go along with that plan. So a cheerful hospital staffer led Harry and Coop back out to the courtyard, gave them some gardening gloves, and pointed them to a patch of garden that was in need of some weeding.

Coop took the task seriously, examining every square inch of dirt and meticulously removing even the tiniest shoot that didn’t belong. Harry idly pulled out some weeds himself, but mostly he just watched Coop. The sight reminded him of watching Coop in investigative mode, giving his whole self over to solving a mystery. Harry wondered if Coop was enjoying having something to _do_ , after such a long time of nothingness. It was hard to tell if he was enjoying anything, because his facial expression never changed from the neutral position it seemed frozen into, not even when he was eating pie or drinking coffee or looking at the flowers in the garden, not even when Harry smiled at him. And that was a bit painful because, before, each of them had been able to induce a grin in the other just with a single look. Harry just had to hope that was the lingering aftereffects of the catatonic state and that Coop would soon smile again.

As Coop worked to remove an especially stubborn weed at its root, he suddenly asked, “Where did you go?”

“What?” Harry was getting used to this pattern, where Coop didn’t say anything to Harry’s greeting or for a long time afterward. It was like he needed time to warm up before speaking. But now Harry wasn’t even sure what Coop was asking.

“When you left Twin Peaks five years ago. Where did you go?”

Apparently, Coop was continuing their conversation from the day before as if no intervening time had elapsed. Harry answered, “Missoula. I worked for the police department there until—” there he went, once again bringing up things he didn’t want to talk about – “until recently.”

“Why Missoula?”

Harry shrugged. “It seemed far enough.” That was the best answer he could come up with that was honest.

Coop succeeded in uprooting the tenacious weed and tossed it onto the pile with the others. Then he stopped the garden work, instead just kneeling in the dirt and staring down at his gloves. His facial expression still hadn’t changed, but Harry could tell by the slump of his shoulders that he was upset.

Harry scooted over closer so that he was kneeling right next to Coop. He was frustrated with himself for saying things that were distressing to Coop, but he didn’t know what else to say. Harry was himself distressed by every single damn thing that had happened in the last five years. He wasn’t even sure exactly what had set Coop off, but a possibility occurred to him. “Hey,” Harry said, “I live here now, in Spokane. I even got an apartment. I’m not going anywhere.”

Coop bowed his head down further. Harry kicked himself. Apparently, he had upset Coop even more. Dammit, why couldn’t he just say the right thing?

“You’re so unhappy.” Coop spoke in a low, tense voice. “And I think it must be because of me.”

“It’s not,” Harry said immediately. He wanted to say that what had made him unhappy was the darkness that had trapped Coop, and the thing that had stolen his face. But he couldn’t say that, because the last thing he wanted was for Coop to know about the Twin Peaks Killer. So what he said was, “I’m happier now than I have been in years. And _that’s_ because of you. Because you came back.” Simple, honest answers. He stopped talking then, because he wasn’t sure what would come out if he opened his mouth again. Coop didn’t say anything else either. But he did go back to weeding the garden.

On his way back to the lobby, Harry was accosted by Dr. Sherman, who asked him to meet her in her office. Reluctantly, Harry complied. He still felt raw from his talk with Coop, so he didn’t really feel like discussing anything with the doctor now, but it could be something important.

“How was it today?” Dr. Sherman asked as Harry sat in front of her desk.

“Fine,” Harry said, not wanting to elaborate. “Those weeds didn’t stand a chance.”

She smiled. “Good. Activities like that should help Dan reconnect to the world. Speaking of which, he still hasn’t spoken to anyone other than you.”

“Really?” Harry wasn’t really surprised by that. Coop had hardly been talkative, even with him.

“Yes. I’ve had him in here for individual sessions three days in a row, ever since he came out of the catatonic state. But he hasn’t responded yet. I need to evaluate his current condition so that we can come up with a plan for the next stage in his treatment, including when it might be safe to discharge him and continue his treatment on an outpatient basis. It might help if you could gently encourage him to participate in sessions.”

“Okay. I’ll try.” Harry didn’t know how much he would be able to influence Coop’s willingness to participate, but his ears had pricked up at the mention of discharge from the hospital at some point in the foreseeable future. So he would do everything he could to help get Coop to that next stage.

* * *

_Day 37_

Cold and rain had returned, so no garden today. Instead, they sat on the sofa in the visitation room. Harry had brought chocolate cream pie today. It seemed like good weather for something rich and decadent. Coop ate his pie and drank his coffee while they watched the rain streak down the window. After Harry’s initial greeting, the silence lasted for longer than normal. Harry wondered if Coop was still upset about the previous day’s conversation. It bothered him that his own emotional state was a source of additional distress to Coop, but he didn’t know how to reassure him. In reality, Harry’s own happiness was tied to Coop’s recovery, but he couldn’t burden Coop with that.

After more than an hour had elapsed, Harry wondered if Coop was going to say anything at all. Sighing, Harry broke the silence himself. “Coop, you should talk to Dr. Sherman.”

“Why?”

“Well, for starters, she’s a good doctor. She might be able to help you.”

“She can’t.” Coop’s tone was flat.

Harry disagreed with that assessment. So far, Coop had shown no inclination to talk about what he had gone through or what he was feeling now. Maybe that was because he wasn’t yet ready to talk about it with anyone. But maybe it was also because Coop didn’t want to talk about it with Harry specifically, because he thought it would add to Harry’s unhappiness. And it would. Harry didn’t know if he was strong enough to hear the details of Coop’s ordeal without being driven to drink again. He was barely keeping it together after what he had experienced himself, and it must have been a thousand times worse for Coop. So talking to a neutral party like Dr. Sherman might be beneficial for Coop, even if he wouldn’t be able to tell her the full story. At least, unlike Harry, she knew what she was doing. She wouldn’t screw up and say something stupid that made everything worse.

But Harry decided not to argue the point about Dr. Sherman’s ability to help right now. Instead, he took a more pragmatic tack. “Well, for another thing, she won’t let you leave until she can evaluate your condition, and she needs you to talk to her to be able to do that.”

“Leave?” Coop repeated the word, sounding bewildered.

“Yeah, leave the hospital. You know, when you get better.” Coop just stared at Harry. As always, his face was blank, but Harry could read the confusion in his body language. “You didn’t think you were going to be stuck here forever, did you?” Harry intended the question as a sort of lame joke, but as soon as he said it, he saw that that’s exactly what Coop had thought.

“I thought …” Coop said, then shook his head and trailed off.

Harry fumed at himself. He should have made it clear from the outset that Coop’s stay in the hospital was temporary. He had thought that went without saying, but apparently not. It seemed that Coop saw himself as being damaged beyond repair. And Harry had been unintentionally reinforcing that by not immediately clearing up his misconception about how long he would be in the hospital. Just another thing he had screwed up.

“Where would I go?” Coop asked, sounding like he was speaking to himself. He looked out through the rain-blurred window, as if he had just remembered that there was a world outside.

“You can stay with me,” Harry said immediately, then realized how presumptuous that sounded. “If you want to, I mean.”

Coop lapsed back into silence. But it was different than the hopelessness-tinged silence from earlier. Now, Harry could tell that Coop was thinking. It was as if he had just realized for the first time that he had a future but he wasn’t yet sure whether that was a good thing or not.


	11. Chapter 11

_Day 38_

“I talked to Dr. Sherman.” Coop’s statement took Harry by surprise, because it came so early in their visit. The weather was sunny again, so they were outside in the courtyard. The ground was too muddy from the previous day’s rain to allow for garden work, so instead they were just walking the paths. Coop had spoken up almost as soon as the guard let them out. Harry hoped that meant Coop was getting over his taciturn phase. He would love to hear Coop give a long monologue about something, like he used to do.

After he had gotten over his surprise about Coop piping up right away, Harry felt additional surprise about what he had said. He hadn’t expected Coop to follow his advice to talk to Dr. Sherman, at least not right away. He suddenly wondered what, exactly, Coop had said to her. He fervently hoped he hadn’t mentioned the Black Lodge, because that sounded crazy, and wouldn’t be likely to get him any closer to being released from the hospital anytime soon. But no, he was sure Coop knew better than to bring that up.

So he just said, “Yeah? That’s good.” He didn’t want to ask what they had talked about or how it had gone but hoped that Coop would give him some indication.

Coop’s follow-up was to ask, in a puzzled tone, “Why does everyone here call me Dan?”

That startled a laugh out of Harry. “Oh, yeah. I told them your name is Dan Carter. I came up with the name on the spot, that’s why it’s not very good. I also told them you’re my cousin, by the way. That’s the fake identity I had to make up for you. Sorry about that.”

“I don’t mind,” Coop said. “I’d rather be someone else anyway.”

That was a comment Harry didn’t feel he could let slide. “Coop—” he started.

But Coop interrupted him. He seemed to be getting back the tempo of normal conversation. “Why did you have to make up a fake identity for me?”

“Because –” Harry paused. Why had he not thought through the explanation that bit of information would require? Despite his commitment to being honest with Coop, he couldn’t tell him about the Twin Peaks Killer. Not now, not like this. He mentally flailed around for something to say that would make sense but wouldn’t go to any dark places.

But Coop saved him the trouble by finishing the sentence for him. “Because there was another me, and he did terrible things.”

Harry stopped short in the garden path. His mind whirled. Had Dr. Sherman talked about the Twin Peaks Killer to Coop in their therapy session? After all, she thought Coop had been held captive by the killer. Maybe she had mentioned it and Coop had put two and two together. But no, she wouldn’t bring that up, would she?

“How did you know about that?” Harry asked, feeling like he’d just been punched in the gut.

“I saw it. Some of it, anyway. I could see through his eyes. He always found a mirror to look in right before he killed. I think he did that so I could see that he had my face.” As he spoke, Coop reached up and touched his own face absently with both hands, exploring the scabs on the healing wounds.

Harry grabbed Coop’s wrists and pulled them down away from his face. He didn’t want anything near Coop’s face right now. He was picturing what had happened. Coop in the woods after being released from the Black Lodge, terrified, filled with horror about what he had seen done by his shadow self, acting on an instinct to mutilate the face he had seen in mirrors at thirteen murder scenes. That was why he had grabbed anything sharp he could find and used it to try to destroy the evil he saw embodied in his own face.

Still holding Coop’s wrists, Harry said, “That thing is dead now.”

“But everyone thought it was me. Even you thought so.” Coop’s voice was remarkably calm.

Harry felt another pang at that. He had never thought that thing _was_ Coop. He had thought it had killed Coop and replaced him. But it was a distinction without a difference because, either way, he had been wrong, wrong, wrong. Harry had given up and left Coop to languish in the Black Lodge while the evil roamed free. “I’m sorry,” he said. That didn’t begin to cover it, but it was all he could say.

“It’s okay,” Coop said, still calm. “Sometimes even I thought it was me. It was hard to tell whether the real me was the one in the Black Lodge or the one outside. I thought maybe that’s why I’m here.” He waved a hand to encompass the hospital. “Some of the patients here are guilty except for insanity.”

“You’re not guilty of anything,” Harry said fiercely. “And you’re not insane. That thing hurt you, but you’re here to get better.”

They walked around some more after that. Harry didn’t feel like talking any more, and apparently Coop didn’t either. So they spent the rest of the visit standing by the fence, looking through the chain links at the birds gathering on the lake.

After leaving the hospital, Harry once again had to go for a long walk along the lakeshore to calm himself enough for the drive home. He hadn’t had any idea what Coop had experienced in the Black Lodge. He had known it was bad, of course, based on how damaged Coop had been by the experience. But it turned out that it had been worse than he could have imagined. Harry had been unable to stomach even the mention of the Twin Peaks Killer on the news over the past five years, and all that time Coop had had front-row seats to all the carnage, to the point that he had had difficulty distinguishing himself from the killer.

Harry picked up a rock and threw it as hard as he could into the lake. It was just so unfair, that this had happened to Coop, of all people. He was so _good_ , in every way, and he had been made to doubt his sanity and his very identity.

When Harry finally got home, he stood for maybe ten minutes on the sidewalk, staring at the bar. He wanted so badly to lose himself in drinking, so that he wouldn’t have to think about Coop in the Black Lodge, Coop seeing his own reflection when the Twin Peaks Killer looked into a mirror, not knowing which one of them was real. But Harry forced himself to remember the last night he had gone drinking, and the consequences that had followed. He just couldn’t take the risk anymore. He had to be at that hospital every day at 3 pm. Coop needed him to be strong. And that thought was what gave him the strength to walk past the bar entrance and up the stairs to his apartment, to spend a sober and sleepless night.

* * *

_Day 45_

For the past week, after the disturbing conversation about the Twin Peaks Killer, everything had been going okay, all things considered. Every day at 3 pm, Harry brought Coop a coffee and a slice of pie. He went with a different kind of pie every day, just to keep things interesting. The bakery he went to had quite a variety, but when he ran out of new kinds, he supposed he could cycle through the old ones again. Spring was going full steam ahead now. The garden was bursting with new blooms, and Harry and Coop spent long sunny afternoons weeding and planting and pruning.

Harry had gotten special permission from the security staff to bring his high-powered binoculars with him on his visits. He also brought a couple of his birding books. He and Coop often sat on the bench by the fence as evening was drawing near, watching the birds on the lake. Harry enjoyed sharing the binoculars with Coop. It was almost like going on a trip together, to somewhere outside the hospital walls. While they sat, Harry pointed out key identifying characteristics, like the coloring differences between the redhead duck and the cinnamon teal. Coop showed a surprising amount of interest in birding, peppering Harry with lots of follow-up questions about the birds’ plumage and behavior like he was investigating them as crime suspects. Coop always had liked learning what things were called.

The gardening and the birding were helpful, in that they gave Harry and Coop something safe to talk about. In the past week, they had steered clear of any discussion of the Black Lodge or the Twin Peaks Killer or any other negative subjects. But Coop finally seemed to be okay with talking in general again. He now immediately returned Harry’s greetings on arrival, asked and answered questions, and no longer needed those long silences in which he was seemingly trying to remember how to talk. Now he could converse normally. Well, normal by most people’s standards. He wasn’t nearly as loquacious as he had been before, so he wasn’t in any way back to Coop-normal yet. More than that, Harry had still not seen Coop smile. The emotionless mask Coop wore on his scarred face seemed to be sticking around for the long term, and that made Harry’s heart ache.

At the end of the day’s visit, Harry packed up his binoculars and birding books. “See you tomorrow, Coop.”

“Good night, Harry.”

The guard took Harry back through the hallway, where he was stopped by Dr. Sherman. He hadn’t talked with her in a couple of days, so he figured it was time for one of those regular check-ins she liked to do. “Have a good visit?” she asked, smiling at his birding gear.

“Yup. We saw a trumpeter swan.”

“Wow, we don’t often get them in the lake here.” She shuffled a bunch of paperwork on her desk. “Harry, I have to tell you again how impressed I am by your dedication to Dan’s recovery. It’s made a big difference. He’s come a long way in a short time, and I credit your support for much of that. Now that he is participating in individual and group therapy and other treatment sessions, I’ve been able to evaluate the current status of his condition.”

“So what is his condition?” Harry asked, a bit apprehensively.

“I’ve diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder with comorbid depression. These are serious conditions, but they are treatable. I started him on the antidepressant sertraline last week, and so far, he seems to be responding to the medication well, with minimal side effects.”

Harry wondered if that was why Coop had seemed to be doing better the past few days. “So he’ll be okay?” he asked, trying to get to the core of what she was saying.

“Well, he’s recovered from the acute crisis of brief psychotic disorder, but PTSD and depression are chronic illnesses. It will be a long road. But given that he’s complying with therapy and has strong support from a family member, I’m cautiously optimistic about his prospects for recovery in the long term.”

“That’s great.” It sounded like a mixed bag, but overall good news.

“So that brings us to the next stage in his treatment. I’m happy to report that Dan has shown no further tendencies toward self-harm since the incident that occurred while he was still experiencing psychosis. So my evaluation is that he doesn’t present a threat to himself or others and that we can start thinking about transitioning him to continue his care in an outpatient capacity.”

“You’re letting him out?” That was sooner than Harry had expected.

“Not right away. We need to continue to monitor him for at least another week or so to make sure he doesn’t experience any adverse effects from the sertraline. But we need to start coming up with a plan for where he will stay and how we can ensure continuity of care once he’s discharged.”

“He’ll stay with me.” Harry had thought that would be obvious enough that he didn’t even need to explain it.

“Do you have the space and time and financial resources to provide care for him? He will need near-constant care at first, as he’s readjusting to life outside.”

“Yeah, no problem. I’ve got plenty of space.” That wasn’t really true, his apartment was tiny, but he pressed on regardless. “And I took leave from work. I don’t need to go back for six more weeks or so.” That was true, sort of. He could get away with not working for at least that long before he went broke.

“And do you feel emotionally prepared to take this on? Providing constant support to someone experiencing mental illness can be taxing to one’s own mental health.”

“Yeah, I’m prepared. I’d do anything to help him.”

“I thought you’d say that.” Dr. Sherman smiled. “These are questions I have to ask. This is a big responsibility, but I believe that you’re up to the task.” She wrote something down in her papers, then looked back at Harry. “I’m going to have a similar conversation with Dan during our session tomorrow, since of course he also has to be on board with this plan. I just wanted to check with you first, to make sure that I can offer him the option of staying with you once he’s discharged. If he agrees to that, I’d like to have another meeting with both of you so we can discuss the details.”

“Okay.” Harry assumed that Coop would agree to that plan, but he wasn’t completely sure. The last time Harry had mentioned the idea of Coop staying with him once he was discharged, Coop hadn’t responded one way or the other. But then, Coop had been upset that day, and he still hadn’t quite gotten used to talking yet.

As he left, Harry felt conflicting emotions. On the one hand, he was relieved that Coop was doing well enough to be released soon. And he reveled in the idea of being able to see Coop outside the hospital, to take him places and do things. That seemed like something that would, in itself, make Coop happier. And Harry would be happier to have Coop with him all the time. Now, he planned his whole life around those 3 pm visits. When he wasn’t at the hospital, he was thinking about what Coop was doing, how he was feeling, whether he was okay. So all those worries that ran in the background of his mind during the day should be allayed once he was able to just see Coop and talk to him any time instead of his regularly scheduled couple of hours in the afternoon.

But on the other hand, maybe the worry wouldn’t just go away. After all, Dr. Sherman had said it would be a long road to recovery, and Coop sure as hell didn’t seem close to being recovered. He was still closer to the state he had been in during the psychotic episode than he was to his old self. And the one good thing about him being in the hospital was that Harry knew he was safe there. When Coop was with him 24/7, there would be many more opportunities for Harry to screw up by accidentally saying something to upset Coop or by not knowing what to say to comfort him during those times when Coop seemed so hopeless and lost.

Still, on the whole, Harry was excited about Coop’s impending release. He spent the drive home thinking of places to visit in and around Spokane that Coop would like. When he got home, he surveyed his apartment critically, then grabbed a pen and paper and started compiling a list of stuff to get before Coop arrived. Harry couldn’t do anything about how small the apartment was, but he could make sure Coop knew how welcome he was.


	12. Chapter 12

_Day 51_

Harry and Coop sat side-by-side on the couch in Dr. Sherman’s office. Today was the day of their joint meeting, when they would go into the details of the plan for Coop’s release from the hospital. Dr. Sherman, sitting in an armchair across from them, made cheerful small talk for a few minutes before getting down to business.

“Well, as I’ve discussed with you both, the treatment seems to be going well. Dan, you’re making good progress. Based on that, I’m recommending that we release you from the hospital next week to continue your care as an outpatient. Harry has told me that he is happy to have you come live with him. Is that still what you want too?”

Coop nodded.

“Good,” the doctor continued. “So far, the sertraline seems to be working well for you, so we’ll keep you on that for now. You will also need to continue therapy at an outpatient facility. I’ll refer you a therapist we work with. We’ll start you on three sessions a week. That schedule can be adjusted, depending on how things go.”

“All right,” Coop said, when it became clear she was waiting for some sort of response.

“There is something else I wanted to bring up. Now might be a good time to make an appointment for a consultation with a plastic surgeon so you can learn about your options for reconstructive surgery. I’d be happy to refer you.”

“No,” Coop said quickly. “Thank you, but no.”

“Okay,” Dr. Sherman said, not missing a beat. “Can I ask why not?”

There was a long pause as Coop seemed to be trying to think of an explanation that made sense.

“There’s no wrong answer, Dan,” Dr. Sherman said. “Whatever you’re feeling is okay.”

Coop darted a quick sideways glance at Harry, then said quietly, “I don’t want to be myself anymore.” Harry felt a sinking feeling at that. Coop’s experience with the Twin Peaks Killer had filled him with such self-loathing that he no longer wanted to look in a mirror and see his own face.

Dr. Sherman just nodded. “Well, it’s your decision, of course. Maybe you’ll be ready later. There’s no rush. I’ll give you the referral to the surgeon anyway, so you can always change your mind.” She changed the subject. “I’ll meet with you both individually to share some coping strategies that may be helpful. Dan, do you have any questions for me?” Coop shook his head. “What about you, Harry?” she asked.

Harry wanted to ask her about Coop’s response to the surgery question, but not in front of Coop. So he just asked, “When can he go home?”

Dr. Sherman looked at her wall calendar. “How about Wednesday?” That was five days away. They both agreed to that.

“Dan, I’m going to have Luis take you out to the garden now,” Dr. Sherman said. “Harry can come join you in a few minutes. I need to talk to him about some paperwork.”

A hospital staffer arrived and took Coop away, leaving Harry alone with Dr. Sherman.

“That thing he said about not wanting to be himself anymore,” Harry immediately said. “Shouldn’t we be worried about that?”

“Yes, it is concerning that he feels that way,” Dr. Sherman said. “Negative self-regard is common in patients suffering from PTSD and depression. The external trauma can become internalized. One of the main goals of treatment will be to help Dan separate himself from what happened to him.”

Harry had a feeling that was going to be particularly difficult given the unique circumstances of Coop’s case, but he couldn’t explain that to Dr. Sherman.

“You look troubled, Harry,” the doctor said, studying his face.

“Yeah. I just don’t know what to do when he says stuff like that.”

“I’ll meet with you again on Monday and go over some strategies for how to provide support. The most important thing is to listen without judgment and let him know you’re there for him. I know you can do it.”

“Okay,” Harry said, still feeling unsure.

“Now, about that paperwork. I’m going to set up a time on Monday for you to meet with the social worker we have on staff. Because Dan is still under state care, his medication and therapy sessions will continue to be covered. But you should start the process of filing a disability claim on his behalf, so that he can get health insurance and a stipend to cover his living expenses. The social worker can help walk you through the application process.”

“Okay, thanks.” Once again, Harry hadn’t even thought of practical stuff like that, so he was grateful he’d have someone to help with it.

Dr. Sherman looked out her window. “Looks like a nice day. You should go out now and join Dan in the garden.”

So Harry did, but all the while his mind was on how defeated Coop has sounded when he said he didn’t want to be himself anymore.

* * *

_Day 56_

It was discharge day. The past couple of days had been busy, which Harry wasn’t used to. Normally all he did was wait around all day for hospital visiting hours to start. But he had spent the weekend mornings shopping for stuff he’d need when Coop arrived.

Then, on Monday morning, he had met with the social worker. That hadn’t gone well. The lady had very patiently explained the entire process for filing disability claims, then handed him the form and told him he could fill it out right there and she would fax it in for him. But Harry had been stumped by one of the very first questions, which asked for Coop’s social security number. He had told the social worker that he didn’t have that info on him, so he would fill out the form at home and fax it in himself. She had helpfully given him her phone number and urged him to call if he had any questions. Harry had thanked her and left, shoving the form into a drawer when he got home.

There was no way he could apply for disability benefits. He couldn’t use Coop’s social security number, because that was the number of a supposedly dead FBI agent turned serial killer. And Dan Carter had no social security number because he didn’t exist. Harry could not think of a way out of that conundrum. Eventually, when Coop was better and was able to work, they would need to find a solution, because he would need a social security number for employment. But, for now, Harry simply didn’t have the mental energy to expend on trying to prove to the US government that Coop was a real living person despite his lack of a valid nine-digit number. And it was too risky. The last thing he wanted to do was call any attention to Coop from the authorities. Anyway, Harry didn’t need whatever paltry additional sum the disability insurance would provide to cover Coop’s living expenses, and Coop’s healthcare was covered by the state for now.

Harry had also had another individual meeting with Dr. Sherman right before visiting hours on Monday afternoon, when she had gone into exhaustive detail on how to provide support for someone with PTSD and depression. She had given him a long list of do’s and don’ts, complete with glossy brochures. Most of it was stuff that Harry already knew, either instinctively or because Dr. Sherman had already told him about it. Don’t pressure Coop into talking, let him take the lead, accept and validate his feelings without dismissing or minimizing the traumatic experience or offering unsolicited advice, create routines, do normal stuff together. One of the brochures, with the heading “Red Flags”, included bullet points indicating a mental health emergency. At the bottom of the list, it proclaimed in bold underlined text, “Seek emergency medical assistance immediately if you or someone you know experiences any of these symptoms.” Harry stared at that one until the list of red flags was burned into his brain.

In their conversation, Dr. Sherman had emphasized the need for Harry to take care of his own needs, to avoid burnout or secondary traumatization. That included taking care of his physical needs, getting his own support system, and taking time for himself. All that was going to be more difficult for Harry. He had at least quit drinking, which should help his own mental and physical health. But he didn’t really have anyone he could go to for support, other than Hawk. As for taking time for himself, he didn’t feel like he’d had a real life in five years. So pretty much all he and Coop had were each other. Harry just hoped that was enough.

Now, on Wednesday morning, Harry drove to Medical Lake, feeling strangely nervous. He went through the usual security routine, for what he sincerely hoped was the last time. Dr. Sherman met him and escorted him to her office, where Coop was standing around waiting. He was dressed in his usual sweats, sneakers, and sunhat ensemble. Harry felt like he should have luggage with him, but of course Coop had absolutely no personal possessions, so there was nothing to pack. Dr. Sherman had them both sign some discharge papers, then walked them out to the lobby herself. She gave them a business card with her home number written across the back, telling them to call her anytime. Harry shook her hand and sincerely thanked her foe everything, and Coop did the same. She smiled and wished them all the best. Then they were free to walk out the door into the bright morning sunshine.

On the drive home, Harry kept stealing sideways glances at Coop, who was staring out the window. He kept looking in astonishment at cars, traffic lights, street signs, billboards, as if he had forgotten that those things existed. As they entered Spokane, Harry started a running commentary on the major sights, such as they were. “That’s Riverfront Park over there. I’ll take you there to see the falls this afternoon. That diner is pretty good, we can go there later for lunch if you want. And there’s that coffee shop I told you about.” Harry parked on the street across from his building. “Well, this is the place.”

As they walked up the stairs, Harry felt the need to temper expectations. “Like I said, it’s a really small room, so it’s pretty crowded.” He opened the door, and they walked inside. Coop looked around. Even with the minimal amount of stuff Harry had had, there hadn’t been much space. But Harry had bought a second twin-sized bed and shoved it, foot-to-foot, against his own, with barely six inches of space between them. The two beds now took up one entire wall, with the couch taking up most of the opposite one, the TV perched awkwardly on a stand in the corner. There was nowhere to put the small folding table and chairs except in the middle of the room, so Harry kept them folded and leaning against a wall when not in use. Harry showed Coop the bathroom and the comically tiny kitchen-in-a-closet. Harry had spent way more than he probably should have on a fancy coffeemaker, which took up most of the counter space, its edge extending outward over the sink. He had also bought some other kitchen stuff, pots and pans and dishes and utensils, which he hadn’t had a lot of before since he had been mostly living on TV dinners. But now that Coop was here, he figured he needed to have some real food on hand, so he had gone grocery shopping the day before. He had also had to buy extra towels and bedding and clothes for Coop, and he now showed Coop where all that stuff was. Finally, tour done, Harry looked at Coop’s expressionless face. “Is it all okay?” he asked, lamely.

“It’s wonderful,” Coop said. “Thank you, Harry.” Harry figured that, after the Black Lodge and then the hospital, Coop’s standards for quality accommodations had been substantially lowered. But he appreciated the sentiment all the same.

Harry smiled and started making coffee. He had splurged on the good stuff. He also pulled out of the mini-fridge a whole cherry pie he had gotten from the bakery. It was time for a celebration.


	13. Chapter 13

_Day 82_

They quickly fell into a routine, which Dr. Sherman had said was important for readjusting to life. In the mornings, they either went to the coffee shop across the street or stayed home so Harry could make them coffee and pancakes and ham or bacon and eggs. Three days a week, Harry drove Coop to his therapy sessions, dropped him off, and came back after an hour to pick him up. They often went to the diner down the street for lunch. In the afternoons, or in the mornings on days when Coop didn’t have therapy, they explored all that Spokane had to offer. Nearly every day, they walked a loop through Riverside Park, stopping to look at the falls and the sculptures and to watch the historic carousel go around and around. They often went to the library, where Coop checked out mostly nonfiction books, history, biography, things like that. They were also regulars at the regional art museum. On their first visit, Coop had spent hours examining the Native American art, so Harry had immediately gotten them memberships so they could visit anytime. Sometimes Harry would drive them out to the Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge, where they would watch the birds and elk and moose going about their business in the wetlands.

Those were pretty much the only places they went. Harry didn’t want to risk taking Coop anywhere that might trigger his trauma. That seemed to rule out the woods. Harry was grateful that they had, by random circumstance, ended up in Spokane, which had a favorable geographic position. To the west was the barren Columbia Plateau, to the south were the rolling prairies and wheat fields of the Palouse Hills. Neither of these open treeless landscapes resembled Twin Peaks in the slightest. It was only when going east toward the Coeur d’Alene Mountains or north toward the Selkirks that the higher elevations yielded the dense Douglas-fir forests that Coop had enthused about upon his initial arrival in Twin Peaks. So as long as they stayed out of the mountains, they didn’t encounter anything that might remind Coop of Glastonbury Grove.

At the same time, Harry also didn’t want to take Coop anywhere too crowded. Coop hadn’t been around people for years, and Dr. Sherman had warned against any environment that was noisy or chaotic. So the park and the library and the museum and the coffee shop and the diner struck just the right balance. There were people around, but not too many, and it was quiet and calm.

There was another issue to Coop being out in public, and that was that people tended to stare at his disfigured face. Harry had never realized how many rude idiots there were in the world. Finding out lowered his regard for humanity. Neither he nor Coop ever said anything about it. But Harry noticed that, when they went to the coffee shop or the diner, Coop always sat facing the wall. And sometimes, walking through the park or museum, Coop would turn to examine a flower or an artifact just as a group of oncoming people approached. Harry wished he could say something about it to Coop, but he followed Dr. Sherman’s advice on letting Coop take the lead on things like that.

In the evenings, Harry would make dinner. He had never been much of a cook, but he figured now was as good a time as any to improve his skills, and he was getting better. Afterwards, they would read or watch TV together. Now that the Twin Peaks Killer was old news, TV felt safe enough again. Watching the news prompted Coop to ask a lot of questions about world events that had happened in the last five years, so Harry filled him in on the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, the Persian Gulf War, the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, and the election of President Bill Clinton. Harry had been so wrapped up in his own misery for the past five years, and so intent on avoiding the news in case the Twin Peaks Killer was mentioned, that he was fuzzy on a lot of the details of these events himself. But now that he looked at it, he was amazed at all the changes that had occurred in the larger world in the time that Coop had been away. Coop himself seemed unperturbed that the entire global map had been redrawn in his absence, instead viewing the whole thing with mild interest.

Harry also bought a VCR, thinking that movies could be a good way to pass the time. But picking movies to rent was something of a challenge. Harry steered clear of anything sad or scary, figuring Coop had had more than enough of both. Even dumb action movies seemed risky, because any violent scenes might trigger something related to Coop’s ordeal. Comedies had initially seemed like a good bet. But after watching a couple of them, Harry realized that wasn’t working either. Coop still hadn’t cracked a smile, much less laughed, and that made Harry not want to laugh either. So they sat silently through the comedies, the jokes ringing hollow. Finally, they had settled on documentaries. Coop seemed to enjoy watching documentaries about nature or ancient cultures or science as much as he enjoyed anything these days, so that was what they watched.

On the first truly summer-like day of the season, Harry and Coop walked their usual route through Riverside Park. The entire city was splotched with bright purple from the lilacs that were just starting to bloom in earnest. Harry and Coop settled on a bench overlooking Spokane Falls, and Harry pulled out a newspaper he had picked up on their walk. He had gotten it for the classified ads. His bank account was getting low, and he needed to get a job soon. He rebelled inwardly at the thought of leaving Coop alone for hours at a time. For the past month, they had hardly been apart at all, other than when Coop was in his therapy sessions. But it couldn’t be helped, the bills had to be paid somehow.

“I’m thinking of going back to work,” he said to broach the subject. He waited a moment. “What do you think?” Sometimes Coop still needed to be prompted to keep conversations going.

“I think you should,” Coop said. “Is the Spokane Police Department hiring?”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t want to work for the police department.” He didn’t elaborate on that. In truth, it was because he needed a job that wouldn’t demand too much of his time or attention, one where he could clock in and clock out and then go home to be with Coop. He also didn’t want any job that was potentially hazardous. In law enforcement, there was always a risk, no matter how small, of getting hurt or killed on the job. And he couldn’t take that risk now, not when Coop needed him. Harry had never had to consider that before, because he had never had anyone depending on him, but he did now. Leafing through the classified ads, he saw a couple of possibilities. “Maybe security,” he said aloud.

“Wouldn’t you be bored doing that?” Coop asked, surprised. Harry had learned that listening to Coop’s voice was the best way to tell his emotional state, because his facial expression never changed.

“Nothing wrong with being bored,” Harry said. Beside him, Coop shifted, and Harry could tell he was distressed about something. He had also become an expert in decoding how Coop was feeling based on his body language.

“Harry,” Coop said. “What is your plan?”

“What do you mean? My plan is to get a job, maybe doing security, and eventually we can save enough money to move to a bigger place—”

“I mean,” Coop interrupted, “what is your plan for your life? What do you want to do?”

“Just what I’m doing.” Harry was bewildered by this line of questioning.

“What you’re doing is not a life, Harry.” Coop looked at him. “Don’t you want to have a career again? You were such a good sheriff. And don’t you want to have a community again? You’re so alone here.”

“I’m not alone, you’re here. And we’ll have all that stuff again. Once you get better.” Harry realized that he had said the wrong thing when Coop stiffened.

“You can’t plan your life around me getting better.” Coop’s tone was bleak with hopelessness.

“You’re already better than you were,” Harry said. He thought back to the glossy brochures Dr. Sherman had given him. They had warned him not to dismiss concerns by blithely saying that everything would be okay. Had he just done that? But the brochures had also said it was important to stay positive and talk about the future. He thought that’s what he had been doing, but apparently it had backfired. Then again, the brochures had advised him to have a life of his own so, clearly, he was not good at following their instructions.

* * *

_Day 114_

Harry had initially gotten a job as a nighttime rent-a-cop at a warehouse on the edge of town. He had thought that the graveyard shift, which ran from 10 pm to 6 am, would work well, because Coop would sleep through most of the time that he was gone. But it hadn’t worked out that way. The first few mornings, when he came home after his shift, he had found Coop sitting at the fold-out table with a cup of coffee, as if he had just gotten up and was waiting for Harry to come back. Harry would greet him, then take a shower and fall into bed, exhausted. If Coop had a therapy session, which had been reduced to twice a week, Harry would set an alarm so he would wake up in time to drive him there, then nap in his truck while Coop was at his appointment. On non-therapy days, Harry would wake up around noon, and he and Coop would head to the diner for lunch and then to the park or the museum or wherever else they felt like going. But after a few days, Harry had noticed that Coop seemed as exhausted as he himself did from the shift work. After about a week of the punishing schedule, Harry had woken up at noon and seen that Coop was also asleep in his own bed. The pieces had clicked together in Harry’s head.

“You’ve been staying up all night, haven’t you?” he had said, bringing Coop a cup of coffee to drink in bed once Coop had woken up.

“I’m sorry,” Coop had said, accepting the coffee meekly.

“You don’t have to apologize. But why? I’m the one stuck working the graveyard shift, not you.”

Coop had stared down into his mug. “I can’t sleep when you’re not here. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Harry had said, and immediately picked up the phone to quit his job. He had been frustrated with himself for not anticipating that nighttime was probably the absolute worst time to leave Coop alone.

But a few days later, Harry had found something much better. It was also a security job, but with a day shift, from 10 to 6. Even better, he didn’t have to leave Coop alone. He now worked security at the upscale mall in downtown Spokane, just a few blocks from their apartment. Every day, Harry and Coop would walk to the mall together. Harry would first take Coop to the food court and sit him down with a coffee and pastry while Harry went to the security office and clocked in, got any updates from his supervisor, and changed into his uniform. Then, he would take Coop with him on his rounds. They would spend the whole day strolling around the mall, busting the occasional shoplifter or reuniting lost kids with their frantic parents. They would eat in the food court on Harry’s lunch break, and when things were really slow, they would peruse the bookstore or the sporting goods store. 

They had even done an investigation and solved a minor mystery together. Someone had been using a Slim Jim to break into cars in the parking lots several days in a row, skillfully avoiding all the security cameras. At Coop’s suggestion, Harry had loaded the cab of his truck with shopping bags as bait and parked it in one of the camera blind spots. The sting had paid off. They had laid in wait and caught the teenage suspect red-handed, then called in Spokane PD to deal with it. Harry liked that about the job; once troublemakers were caught, all he had to do was kick them out or call the real cops if it was a more serious infraction.

All in all, there was a lot to like about the job. Seeing the same people day after day, it was almost like being part of a community again. Everyone, from the girl who worked at the coffee shop to the woman at the bookstore to the guy at the sporting goods store, got used to seeing Coop tag along with Harry. All the mall denizens seemed fond of them both, but especially of Coop. Even now, when Coop had a disfigured face and never smiled and didn’t talk much, he was still so damn likable. He remembered people’s names and the names of their spouses and kids and pets and their hobbies and where they were going on vacation. He asked them about all those things and really listened to their answers. As a result, all the mall employees brightly greeted Coop whenever they saw him and sought him out for conversations and, in the case of Katie the coffee shop girl, always slipped him an extra muffin. Even with the darkness he was currently struggling with, Coop was still the most considerate and charismatic person any of these people had ever met. Harry wished they could have met the old Coop.

Today was the end of Harry’s third week on the job, and he had concluded that it was, quite unexpectedly, the best possible way for him to earn a living right now. It didn’t pay much, but it was enough, and even though he was doing nothing most of the day, he was rarely bored. Best of all, getting to interact with people seemed to be doing Coop some good. It was doing Harry good too to have work to do, even if that work was mostly stupid and pointless.

It was the end of his shift, so he told Coop he’d meet him in the food court and went off to the security office to check out. He changed out of his uniform and filed the incident report about the kids he’d caught smoking pot in the restroom earlier in the day. Then he went to the food court and found Coop standing at the coffee shop talking to Katie the barista, who had at least one piercing on every visible body part that could be pierced. “I’m glad your exam went well,” Coop was saying to her. “You must be a serious student, to take summer classes while working full-time.”

Katie smiled. “Well, that’s why I’m taking the summer classes. I don’t want to work here forever. Next year, I’m applying to law school at Gonzaga.”

“You must be excited.”

“I’ll be excited when I get in. First, I have to take the LSATs. It’s a good thing I work at a coffee shop, because I’ll need all the caffeine I can get in the next few months.” Pulling an espresso shot, she noticed that Harry had arrived to collect Coop. “Hi, Harry. Bust any ne’er-do-wells today?”

“Pretty slow day. Just some teenagers using illicit substances on mall property.”

“Well, give ‘em hell.” She finished making the drink she was working on. “Do you want one for the road?”

“Not me, thanks,” Harry said.

“Well, I know you want always one,” she said to Coop. “On the house.” She handed him the drink she had just made, and Coop thanked her politely. Harry grinned. Even though Coop no longer had the picture-perfect face, way-too-young girls still fell all over him.

Walking out of the air-conditioned mall was like stepping into an oven. It was the first really hot day of the summer. As they began the walk home, Harry noticed the drink in Coop’s hand. “Is that an iced coffee?”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t like iced coffee.” Harry was quite confident that he knew all there was to know about Coop’s coffee preferences, and iced coffee was not among those preferences.

“Katie started making it for me before you arrived. She said iced coffee was the best thing to drink on a hot day, and it seemed impolite to disagree.”

Harry laughed. “Summer has barely started. You know she’s going to give you an iced coffee every day for the next two months now, right?”

“I sincerely hope not.” Coop looked helplessly at the cup, which was beginning to drip with condensation. “How do you think we can stop her?”

There was something like a smile in his voice, even though there was still none on his face, and the sound of it lifted Harry’s heart. There was also something in the way Coop moved, in the way he held his shoulders, that made it seem that he had been lifted too. Maybe he was finally getting to a place where he could feel some measure of happiness, even if he couldn’t yet feel it or show it as effusively as he once had.

“Come on,” Harry said. He gallantly grabbed the offending drink and tossed it in a garbage can. “It’s too hot to go home. You want to go to the park instead?”

So they spent the evening lounging in the grass, listening to the music of the falls, eating hot dogs and sno-cones from the park food carts, watching as the sun went down and the city lights came on like twinkling stars, until the welcome cool of night settled over them.


	14. Chapter 14

_Day 121_

Harry had just finished his morning shower and gotten dressed when the phone rang. Upon answering it, he immediately abandoned any fanciful notions he had harbored of having a good day.

“What do you want?” he said into the phone, through gritted teeth.

“Is that Albert?” Coop asked from the foldout table, where he was drinking his morning coffee. Harry nodded, making a face. He guessed Coop had known the caller’s identity just because Albert was the only person who elicited that kind of reaction from Harry. There was no other reason to expect Albert to call. He hadn’t called once since that very enjoyable conversation he and Harry had had a couple months ago when Coop was still in the hospital, the one that had precipitated Harry’s drunken binge that had nearly destroyed his life. So, yeah, he was even less happy than usual to hear Albert’s sneering voice.

“I want to talk to Coop.” Albert didn’t even bother to insult Harry first, which meant he was serious.

“ _Now_ you want to talk to him?” Harry was in disbelief. “You know, he’s been out of the hospital for over two months now.”

“Yes, I know. Sheriff Hill has been keeping me updated.”

“So you could have called at _any_ point in the last two months –”

“Well, if you missed me that badly, you could have just called me yourself –”

Coop had stood up and was now standing with his hand outstretched toward the phone. “Harry, I’ll talk to him.” Harry couldn’t tell if Coop really wanted to talk to Albert or if he was just throwing himself on that grenade for Harry’s sake. Either way, he wasn’t letting Albert talk to Coop until he had some assurance that their conversation wasn’t going to send Coop into a red-flag, seek-emergency-medical-assistance-immediately, full-fledged mental health crisis. Albert had that kind of effect on most people he talked to, even those who weren’t vulnerable like Coop currently was.

Harry made a “just a minute” gesture to Coop and turned away with the phone. “Albert, listen.” Harry took a deep breath, trying to push down the antagonistic reflex that always kicked in with Albert. “Coop is in a vulnerable state right now.” He hated saying this with Coop standing right there, but there was nothing he could do about that, there was only one damn room. “It’s very important that you avoid saying anything that might upset him—”

“Believe it or not, I know quite a bit more about mental health than even an expert such as yourself. I know to avoid the triggers and how to be affirming and supportive and non-judgmental and all that. In fact, I’m way more qualified to talk to someone with PTSD and depression than you are.”

“Really?” That was all Harry could come up with. But apparently his tone effectively conveyed his level of incredulousness at Albert’s statement.

“Yes, really.” Albert dropped some of his snarkiness with a palpable effort. “Look, I wanted to call before, but to be perfectly honest with you, I wasn’t sure I was in the right frame of mind to talk to him. The way he was that night – I didn’t think there was any way he could ever come back from that. But then he did, and I guess that was partly thanks to you. So you were right and I was wrong, which means there really is a first time for everything. But I’ve never been so glad to be wrong. So, yes, I would like to talk to him now, if that’s okay with you.” The snarkiness made a rally in the last part of Albert’s little speech but, overall, it was the most heartfelt thing Harry had ever heard from him.

“Okay. I’ll hand you over to him.” Harry eyed the phone as if he could will it to behave, then turned around and handed it to Coop. “He’s all yours.”

“Hello, Albert,” Coop said. There was a long pause, then Coop said, “You too.” Another pause, then, “Much better now.”

Harry realized he didn’t want to be in the room for this call. For one thing, he wanted to give Coop some privacy so he could speak freely. Also, he hoped that maybe, if he left, the conversation would be done by the time he got back, so he wouldn’t have to talk to Albert again. So he made a “be right back” gesture, and Coop nodded.

Harry went across the street to the coffee shop. Coop was already on his first cup of the day, but it wasn’t like he wouldn’t want another. So Harry bought two cups of coffee and a couple of donuts, spent a few minutes perusing a newspaper someone had left on the table while drinking his own coffee, then went back to the apartment with Coop’s coffee and the donuts.

He didn’t hear Coop’s voice as he approached the door, so he assumed he had been gone long enough and entered. But then he cursed inwardly, seeing Coop was still on the phone, apparently listening to something Albert was saying. “Yes,” Coop said. “He just came back, by the way.”

Harry shot Coop a betrayed look. Coop shrugged apologetically. “All right,” Coop said into the phone, apparently wrapping things up. “Thank you, Albert. Here he is.” Coop handed the phone back to Harry.

“Do I have to?” Harry asked.

Coop just looked at him. He didn’t have the reproachful expression he used to wear when he was trying to make Harry and Albert play nice, but Harry could feel the reproach all the same. He sighed and took the phone. “Yes?” he said as politely as possible.

“I hear you’re a mall cop now,” Albert said with malicious glee. “I’m so glad you’ve found a career that your abilities are so well-suited for.”

Harry made another “Et tu, Brute?” look at Coop, who ducked guiltily. “Is that all?” he said to Albert.

“Not quite.” Harry rolled his eyes in anticipation of whatever other abuse was coming his way. “I just wanted to say Coop seems to be doing okay, all things considered. And I hope you’re doing okay too.” Albert sounded stiff, like he might strain something by not being a jerk for once.

“Yeah. We’re both doing okay. Thanks. And you know,” Harry said, envisioning the inevitable future in which he would come to regret saying this but saying it anyway, “you can call him again. If you want. Just tell Hawk to tell me when you’re planning to call so I can be elsewhere.”

“Deal,” Albert said, and hung up.

“You okay?” Harry immediately asked Coop, examining him with a critical eye. It didn’t look like Coop had experienced any trauma from the conversation, which was more than Harry could say for most of his own interactions with Albert.

“Yes, I’m fine. It was good to hear from Albert again. It’s been such a long time.”

Harry didn’t want to ask what they had talked about but, for some reason, he felt compelled to point out on Albert’s behalf, “He was really worried about you back when you were in the hospital. And he would have called before, but he had to get himself ready for it.” Harry realized that he wasn’t upset or angry, which was a first for him after talking to Albert. He guessed he was just happy that someone else who cared about Coop was going to be checking in, even if that someone else was Albert. And he was no longer quite so angry at Albert for apparently abandoning Coop. He understood now why Albert hadn’t called sooner or visited the hospital, out of fear that he wouldn’t be able to emotionally handle it himself. That was a feeling Harry understood all too well.

In response to Harry’s uncharacteristic defense of Albert, Coop just nodded and said, “I know.” Then he looked at the paper bag Harry had brought back from the bakery. “Are those donuts in there?”

“Yeah, jelly ones.” Harry held on to the bag for a moment. “But maybe I’ll withhold them from you, after you made me talk to Albert _and_ told him I’m a mall cop.”

“I am sorry about that,” Coop said. “But, Harry, you could never bring yourself to withhold donuts from me.”

If Harry looked away, he could almost see the bright smile on Coop’s face in his memory, the smile that had never failed to produce a grin on his own face. So Harry let the grin come, and said, “Yeah, you’re right,” sliding the bag over to Coop.

* * *

_Day 136_

It was Harry’s lunch break, and the mall food court was crowded. Coop volunteered to find them a table while Harry went and got them some food. Harry weaved his way through the throngs of people, craning his neck to see which place had the shortest line. It looked like the sandwich place was the best bet. He walked past the coffee cart on the way, where Katie smiled and waved to him and he waved back. She looked way too busy for chitchat, so Harry continued to the sandwich place.

Bag of sandwiches in hand, Harry returned to the seating area to look for Coop. He spotted him sitting at a table in an open area near the coffee cart. Even from across the room, Harry could tell something was wrong. Coop was sitting stiffly, looking down at the table. He had been fine five minutes ago, what the hell had happened? Harry hurried to get over there. Just before he arrived at Coop’s table, he stopped short at the neighboring table, where three teenage boys were laughing uproariously over their pizza. Something one of the boys was saying had cut through the cacophony of the food court to reach Harry’s ears.

“Freaks like that shouldn’t be allowed out in public. Some of us are trying to eat,” the boy said, shoving pizza into his mouth.

“Yeah, that dude’s always here, hanging out with that mall cop,” one of the others said. He was facing the other way, so was apparently unaware that said mall cop was standing right behind him. “I wonder how his face got that way. Or was he born that ugly?”

“He looks like Darth Vader with his mask off at the end of _Return of the Jedi_ ,” the third kid laughed. Of the three, he was the only one facing in Harry’s direction, and he abruptly stopped laughing as he looked up from his food and saw Harry looming over their table. “Oh, shit,” the kid muttered. His friends turned in their chairs. The identical looks of mingled shame and terror on their faces would be comical if Harry weren’t seething with rage.

“Get out of here,” Harry said to them. His own voice sounded strange to him, like brittle glass about to break.

One of the kids was brave or stupid enough to protest. “Hey, dude, we’re not doing anything wrong. We’re paying customers in this mall, and you’re not even a real cop anyway –”

“I said, get out of here.” Harry dropped his sandwich bag on the ground and, with one deliberate movement, swept his arm across the kids’ table, sending pizza and soda and plates and napkins flying everywhere. It wasn’t something he planned to do, he just did it before even he himself realized what was happening. “Now. And if I ever seen you in here again, you’ll regret it.” He hadn’t raised his voice, but it sounded out clearly anyway, because the immediate area of the food court had gone silent after the shower of food had hit the floor. The kids looked at each other and, as one, stood up and fled.

“Harry.” Coop was suddenly at his side, grabbing his arm. “Please, let’s just get out of here.”

Harry couldn’t move. He was shaking with anger at those stupid kids or shock at himself or grief for what Coop had to endure. It was all tangled up together so he couldn’t separate or even identify his feelings. All around, people sitting at tables or standing in line for food were staring at him. Staring at Coop, too, which was what spurred Harry to finally get moving. Coop didn’t need more people staring at him. All Harry had done was create a scene and call even more attention to Coop.

So Harry started to hurry away from the food court, Coop still clinging to his arm. They didn’t make it far before Katie the barista came running up to them. “Harry, are you okay?” she asked. Her apron was stained with coffee that she had apparently spilled on herself.

“Yeah, thanks.” Harry kept moving, but she trotted beside them.

“What was that all about? What did those kids do?” she asked. Harry felt vaguely appreciative that she believed the kids had done something to deserve it, rather than that he had just gone crazy on a group of teenagers for no reason. But he still wasn’t going to talk to her about it. He didn’t want to talk to anyone about it.

But Coop answered her question for him. “They were mocking me. The scars on my face.”

“Oh.” Katie looked sympathetic. “That’s terrible. I swear, teenage boys can be the dumbest sacks of shit on this planet. There’s a reason I only date older guys.” She blushed and looked embarrassed at what she had just said. “Hey, where are you going, anyway?” She seemed to be trying to change the subject.

Harry stopped. That was a good question. His instinct had been to get as far away from the food court as possible, but he hadn’t thought it through any more than that. They were now almost all the way down one of the long arms that extended out from the central food court area, with nothing but J.C. Penney ahead. “I don’t know. I think we need to get to somewhere quiet for a bit.”

“You could go to the employee locker room,” Katie suggested. “There probably won’t be anyone in there in the middle of the day.”

“Yeah. Good idea.” Harry just wanted to get away from people. He felt like all the shoppers walking by were still staring at them, even though probably none of them had witnessed the incident in the food court. Maybe it was just the waves of manic energy he was no doubt generating.

“I can loan you my key,” Katie said helpfully, then interrupted herself. “Oh, yeah, I’m such an idiot, of course you have keys to everything here.”

They turned and started walking back the opposite direction, toward the employee locker room. As they approached the food court, Katie peeled off. “I’d better get back to work. Todd is going to be pissed at me for abandoning my post while we’re this slammed. But, Harry, that was pretty kickass what you did. Those kids totally deserved it for being mean to Dan.”

Harry had nothing to say to that. He and Coop went down the side corridor that led to the locker room. Harry found the key and they went inside. As Katie had predicted, the place was empty. Harry sat on one of the benches, leaning over with his forehead on his hands and his elbows on his knees. Coop sat down next to him.

“I’m sorry, Coop,” Harry said after a few minutes.

Coop sighed. “Harry, you can’t do things like that.”

“I know. I just couldn’t stand hearing those stupid kids say those things about you.”

“What strangers think of me is of no consequence.”

“It is to me. After everything you went through, you shouldn’t have to hear people talk about it when they have no idea – like it’s nothing –” Harry struggled to find the words to express why it bothered him on such a deep level. It was like, to the rest of the world, Coop wasn’t a real person, he was nothing but his disfigured face. People reacted to him like a circus sideshow, while his kindness and intelligence and humor, all the wonderful things that made him Coop, were hidden behind that mask.

Coop put his arm around Harry’s shoulders, and Harry gratefully leaned against him. This was the closest they’d been since the night Coop had first spoken, in his room at the hospital. Before, in Twin Peaks, they had had such immediate, easy camaraderie that each of them had always been putting a hand on the other’s shoulder or slapping his back. On one memorably ridiculous occasion, Coop had even tweaked Harry’s nose. But now, Coop was so reserved, rarely initiating any sort of physical contact, and Harry followed his lead and tried to give Coop the space he seemed to want. Paradoxically, even though they lived in the same small room and went pretty much everywhere together now, they were more physically distant than they’d ever been. It was just another part of Coop that seemed to be lost, that Harry could only hope would come back someday. So it meant a lot to Harry that Coop was reaching out to him now, not for comfort for himself, but for Harry.

“I am sorry,” Harry repeated after a few minutes. “It was selfish of me to respond to what I was feeling and not think about how it affects you. I guess I made things worse for you.”

“No, not for me. As I said, I’m not bothered by how others react to me. But, Harry, that sort of behavior could get you in trouble at work. What if those boys complain to your supervisor?”

“I doubt they will.” Despite himself, Harry felt a bit smug about watching those hoodlums run away from him. “I think the bad cop routine really scared them.”

“Nevertheless, you shouldn’t do anything that will endanger your employment. You’ve seemed happier since you started this job.”

That was a good point. And Coop had seemed happier too. And there was the minor matter that Harry needed a paycheck to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. “Okay, you’re right. I’ll be professional at work from now on, no matter what. Speaking of which, I am still on duty. We’d better get back out there.” Just a few minutes of being close to Coop had given Harry enough strength that he felt ready to face the mall masses again. He’d just avoid the food court for the rest of the day.

As they stood up and walked toward the exit, Coop said, “You go on. I’m going to head back to the apartment for the rest of the day.” His voice was casual, so casual that it set off alarm bells in Harry’s head.

But he just said, “You sure?”

“Yes. I’ve been wanting to get some reading done.” That was a bald-faced lie, and Coop had to know Harry knew that. But Harry decided to go along with it anyway. He could understand Coop wanting a break from the mall after being the subject of such public attention.

“Okay.” Harry glanced at his watch. “My lunch break isn’t technically over yet. I can walk you there and be barely late getting back.”

“You don’t have to walk me there.” Now Coop sounded exasperated. “I know the way.”

“Yeah, I know, but –” Harry cast about for some excuse to walk with Coop. There was no way he was going to let him go alone. Coop hadn’t yet walked alone through the city streets. There was no reason he couldn’t, but Harry didn’t want his first time out in the city on his own to be right after the experience they’d just had. “I want some fresh air and exercise,” he announced, triumphant in how reasonable that sounded. “It will help get me settled down for the rest of the shift.”

He knew Coop knew that _that_ was a bald-faced lie, but Coop was a good sport about it. “If that’s what you would like to do,” he said. So they walked back through the bustling streets, Harry watched Coop enter the apartment building, and then he hurried back so he wouldn’t be later than he already was for the second half of his shift.


	15. Chapter 15

_Day 139_

After the incident at the mall, Coop became withdrawn. The next day, he had said he wanted to stay home while Harry went to work. Harry had figured Coop just needed one more day to shake things off, so he went to the mall alone and worked his shift. He had brought home a muffin Katie had sent Coop, although not the iced coffee she had wanted to send along too. The following morning, Coop had therapy. When he was done, he had asked Harry to drop him off at home instead of going to the mall. Harry was starting to get worried about Coop’s newfound aversion to going out, but he had obliged. When he got home that evening, he had pointedly told Coop that not only Katie, but also Linda at the bookstore and Brian at the sporting goods store, had asked about him. Coop had not responded.

Now, Harry was getting ready for the day’s shift, while Coop sat at the table drinking coffee and not looking like he was planning to leave the apartment. “You coming today?” Harry asked as casually as he could.

“No, I’m staying here.” Coop placidly took a sip of coffee.

“Coop.” Harry didn’t want to argue, but he was getting seriously worried now. “You said you don’t care how people react to you.”

“I don’t. I’m more concerned about how you might react to people reacting to me.”

“I said I was sorry about losing it the other day.” Harry really regretted that incident now. If Coop really was becoming a recluse because of him, he would never forgive himself. “I won’t do anything like that again. I promise.”

“I still think it’s better if I avoid the mall for the time being.”

“Fine, you don’t have to go to the mall. But you can’t stay in here every day. You should go _somewhere_. It’s nice out, you could at least go over to the park while I’m at work.”

“Yes, I suppose I could.” Coop’s tone was so noncommittal that Harry felt that follow-up was required.

“So are you going to?”

“No, probably not.”

“Why not? Is this because of – because of your face?” Harry didn’t like bringing up the scars to Coop, and he felt that he was treading on dangerous ground. But he was desperate to try to make sense of what was happening, so he pressed on. “Because we could make an appointment to see that surgeon –”

“No. That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is the problem? I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.” Messages from the glossy brochures Dr. Sherman had given him flashed into his mind, saying that he shouldn’t push Coop into talking or doing things, that he should let him take the lead. But overriding those messages was his own feeling that Coop had been doing better when he was going outside, that Harry had obliterated that progress with his ill-conceived outrage on Coop’s behalf, and he wanted so badly to undo that mistake and get Coop on the right path again.

“You can’t help me anyway, Harry.” Coop’s voice was gentle, but his words cut Harry to the bone. Harry’s face must have shown his hurt, because Coop quickly looked away from him. “You’re going to be late for work if you don’t leave now,” Coop said, obviously wanting to end the conversation.

Harry left without saying another word. Two blocks away, he regretted that. He didn’t want Coop to think he was mad at him, because he wasn’t. He was mad at himself but, more than that, he was just filled with despair. He almost went back to apologize to Coop for storming out like that, but he figured Coop was probably glad to have him gone for a few hours. Besides, he really was going to be late for work if he turned back now.

Walking through the automatic doors of the mall felt like walking into a prison. Harry had thought that he kind of liked the job, but it really was incredibly boring. It just hadn’t seemed that way when he’d had Coop with him for company. The boring nature of the job was a real problem today, because it offered nothing to distract him from thinking about what Coop was doing back in the apartment and what he would say to him when he got home. And, of course, all their mall acquaintances would be asking him about Coop again.

Harry went into the security office and listlessly went through his start-of-day routine. As he grabbed his walkie-talkie and prepared to head out for patrol, he had an idea. There was no one else in the office right now, so it was a good time to make a call that he wouldn’t be able to make from home. He dug through his wallet, found the business card he was looking for, and dialed the number.

Dr. Sherman answered her office line right away. “Hey, doc, this is Harry Truman. Dan Carter’s cousin. Do you remember us?” He thought she probably did, but who knew how many patients came and went.

“Of course, Harry,” she said warmly. “Is everything all right?”

“Well, not really. I’m worried about him, and I was hoping you could tell me if I should be.”

“Sure, I’d be happy to hear about it,” she said, sounding a bit surprised. “As the psychiatrist in charge of Dan’s case, I’ve been getting regular updates from his therapist, and it seems that everything has been going well.”

“It was, or I thought it was anyway, until a couple days ago.”

“Tell me about what happened.”

So he told her about the mall incident and about how Coop had been refusing to leave the apartment since and about their argument that morning. She listened to the whole story, only interrupting to ask clarifying questions. “Well, I can understand why you’re concerned,” she said when he was done. “In order to evaluate this situation, I’ll need to speak with you both. Can you come to the hospital tomorrow morning at 8 am?”

“Yeah, sure.” That was Harry’s day off anyway.

“Great. Now, remember it’s important to respect Dan’s autonomy. Ask him if he would be willing to come to the appointment tomorrow, don’t tell him to. If he refuses, call me again and I’ll speak to him on the phone.”

“Okay.” They hung up, and Harry felt a bit better the rest of the day. He trusted Dr. Sherman, so just the thought of seeing her the next day was reassuring.

When he got home at the end of his shift, Coop was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee, in the exact same position he had been in when Harry left. Maybe he hadn’t moved at all, except he must have gotten up to make more coffee at some point.

“Hey,” Harry said, a bit uncertainly.

“Hello, Harry,” Coop said, with a slight air of contrition. “How was work?”

“Fine. Katie sent you a chocolate muffin.” Harry put the bag on the table. “She says she misses you.”

“Please send her my regards.” The flat tone was back in Coop’s voice. Harry hated the sound of it.

Harry sat at the table across from Coop. “Would you be okay with going to see Dr. Sherman tomorrow morning?”

Coop shrugged. “I suppose. I didn’t realize I had an appointment with her.”

“That’s because I just made it today.”

“You called her?” No surprise or anger, just the same flat tone.

“Yeah. I thought it was a good idea.”

“That’s fine. I’ll go.”

“Good. Thanks.”

They spent the rest of the evening in silence.

* * *

_Day 140_

Dr. Sherman had instructed Harry to go to a different building than the main one they used to go to. It was a smaller building at the far end of the hospital campus. Apparently, it was outside the secure perimeter because it was where new patients initially went to be processed and where released patients like Coop sometimes went for follow-up appointments.

Being back in Medical Lake set Harry on edge. He had felt some of the deepest despair of his life while staring out at that lake. He wondered if maybe coming back here had been a bad idea, even though he still believed Dr. Sherman was their best bet for help. Maybe he should have asked if they could have met her somewhere else. He kept studying Coop to see if he was having a similar reaction to being back, but he seemed to be handling it stoically.

As they announced themselves at the reception desk and were given paperwork to fill out, Harry suddenly realized that this must be the building Coop had been taken to when he arrived at the hospital as a catatonic John Doe, face bleeding from his fresh cuts. That vision was so overwhelming that Harry nearly dropped the pen he was writing with. Coop glanced at him but didn’t say anything.

After a few minutes, the receptionist told them that Dr. Sherman wanted to speak to the patient alone first. So Coop was escorted into some back office while Harry stayed in the waiting room. It was a long time, close to an hour. Harry hoped that was because Coop had a lot to say and not because Dr. Sherman was having to pull teeth to get him to say anything. Finally, a nurse came out and told Harry that he could come in now, escorting him to the office.

When Harry entered, Dr. Sherman rose from her armchair to greet him with a smile and a handshake. He sat on the couch next to Coop while the doctor made some small talk about what a hot summer it was turning out to be.

“And how are you feeling, Harry?” she asked, smoothly transitioning from the weather.

“Fine,” he said automatically.

“Could you elaborate on that, please?”

Apparently, she wanted an actual answer. Harry had thought that she had brought him in here just to tell him how Coop was doing, but it seemed that she was going to do her psychiatrist thing on him too. Well, he probably needed it.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “I guess I’m not feeling that great. I’m worried. And angry.”

“At Dan?” Dr. Sherman asked neutrally.

“No, of course not.” Harry was horrified at the suggestion. “At myself. And the whole – situation.”

Dr. Sherman nodded. “Okay. Harry, Dan has something he would like to say. I want you to listen, and not respond until I ask you to. Got it?”

“Yeah.”

Dr. Sherman looked at Coop expectantly. Coop fidgeted, as if uncomfortable being put on the spot like that. “I feel,” he said, sounding as though he were reciting something that he had practiced with Dr. Sherman, “guilty that I’m not getting better faster.”

Harry opened his mouth to point out how ridiculous that was, then closed it at a warning look from Dr. Sherman. The doctor said, “Okay, Harry, when you respond to that, please only use sentences that begin with ‘I feel.’ Can you do that?”

“I guess.” It wasn’t like she was giving him a choice.

“Then go ahead.”

Harry was stumped for a moment. He wasn’t used to talking about his feeling like this. “I feel …,” he said. “I feel confused about why you feel that way.” That was the best he could do.

“Dan?” Dr. Sherman prompted.

“I feel,” Coop said, then paused. He seemed to be having as much trouble with the “I feel” statements as Harry was. “That I’m letting you down.”

“You’re not,” Harry said right away.

“Harry, please put that in ‘I feel’ language,” Dr. Sherman gently reprimanded him.

Harry glared at her. He understood that there had to be some scientific reason for why it was important to talk in this overly structured way, but it was awkward as hell. “I feel,” he tried, “that you could never let me down. I feel that I want you to get better. But I feel bad that I’ve made you feel like you’re letting me down by not getting better faster. Because you’re not.” He grimaced at the word salad he had just made.

“Dan, would you like to respond to that?” Dr. Sherman asked. Coop shook his head. “Okay, I’d like to speak to Harry alone now. Would you mind going back to the waiting room, Dan?

Coop left, and Dr. Sherman turned to Harry. “Harry, can you tell me about what else has been going on in your life?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you do when you’re not at work or with Dan?”

“Uh, that’s pretty much it.”

“And I understand you’ve been taking Dan with you to your job at the mall?”

“Yeah, until a couple days ago, when he didn’t want to come anymore.”

“Do you have any other family members that you’re close to?”

“No. I have a brother, but we’re not close.”

“What about friends?”

“I have a good friend who lives a couple hours from here. We talk on the phone once a week or so.”

“Any friends who live locally?”

“Not really. Some people at work I’m friendly with, but I haven’t been here long enough to make any real friends.”

“That’s right, I understand that you moved to Spokane from Missoula back when Dan was admitted to the hospital here?”

“Yeah.”

“And you quit your job at the Missoula Police Department and have only recently started working again, as a mall security guard.”

“That’s right.”

“That’s a pretty big career change.”

“For now, I’d rather just work at the mall.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I don’t want to spend any more time or energy than I have to on work right now.”

“Because you’re focused on Dan.”

“Yeah.” Harry was getting exhausted by what felt like an interrogation.

Dr. Sherman picked up on his frustration. “I’m sorry for all the questions, Harry. I’m just trying to get a clear picture. Have you ever heard of codependency?”

“I guess.” This didn’t sound good.

“It’s a condition of excessive emotional dependence on another person. From what both you and Dan have described, I think your relationship has some codependent elements. Specifically, the markers include assumption of responsibility for others’ needs to the exclusion of acknowledging one’s own, as well as separation anxiety. I’m concerned that these problems are rising to the level that they’re impeding Dan’s recovery as well as harming your own mental health.”

“So I’m making him worse?” It sounded like Harry’s worse fears were being confirmed.

“No, that’s an oversimplification. And I want to be clear that this is not a matter of blame, it’s an issue of trying to identify any unhealthy dynamics so that we can all work together to remedy them. As I see it, you want nothing more than for Dan to recover, to once again be the person you knew prior to the trauma he experienced. And he wants nothing more than to make you happy. But you’re unhappy because he’s still sick, and he picks up on that and it makes him even unhappier, and he spends his limited energy reserves on trying to convince you that he’s okay instead of focusing on his own recovery. Does that sound like what’s happening?”

Harry felt a sick feeling of recognition. That was exactly what was happening. These past few weeks, when he had thought Coop was doing better – chatting with people at the mall, making little jokes, even seeming more relaxed in his vocal tones and body language – he had just been doing all those things for Harry’s benefit. Harry had taken them as signs that Coop was recovering, because he had wanted so badly to believe that was true. But all that time Coop had still been hurting inside, and he had felt that he had to hide his pain from Harry.

“Yeah. I think you’re right.” Harry’s own voice sounded hollow to him.

“We can fix this, Harry,” Dr. Sherman said reassuringly. “The good news is, I don’t believe the codependency is truly pathological. Some of the other key markers involve exerting control over the other person or enabling of self-destructive behavior, and I don’t see any signs of that here. I think it may be helpful to uncover the origins of your emotional dependence on Dan. Can you tell me about what your life was like in Missoula?”

“It wasn’t good.”

“How so?”

“I moved there after he went missing.”

“You wanted to get away.”

“Yeah.” Harry took a deep breath. He really hadn’t planned on saying any of this, to anyone, ever, but the words came out in a flood. “I saw Dan right before – before he disappeared. I might have been able to do something that would have changed things, but I was stuck with the way things turned out. And then, for five years, I thought he was dead, and all that time I had to hear about the Twin Peaks Killer all over the news. And all I could think about was how much I wished I had done something different, and how much I wanted him to come back.”

“And is that when you started drinking?”

Harry stared at her, confused about how she knew about that, before remembering that he had stunk like whiskey the first time he met her. She had probably been able to figure out the cause of that missed visit and his black eye too. “Sort of. I drank before, sometimes, but not like that.”

Dr. Sherman nodded. “Harry, you have your own psychological trauma, which you’ve been self-medicating with alcohol for years. I think you would benefit from therapy. I can refer you to a therapist, and to some local AA groups as well. Please keep in mind that you can’t help Dan if you don’t help yourself.”

“I’ll think about it.” Even as he spoke, Harry knew he wouldn’t go to therapy. It wasn’t that he looked down on it or anything. It was just that he couldn’t ever tell anyone the true details of what had happened, so there was no point in talking to a therapist.

“Okay. Now, as you know, that kind of healing takes a long time, so we should also discuss some immediate steps we can take to resolve the codependency issue.”

“What can I do?” Harry supposed it was true that he was emotionally dependent on Coop, in that he couldn’t see himself being happy as long as Coop was unhappy, but there was no way out of that as far as he could tell. “It’s not like I can stop caring about him.”

“No, of course not, and it’s good that you care about him. I meant what I said when Dan was in the hospital, that your support was crucial in helping him recover to the point that he has. And it will continue to be crucial going forward. But in addition to caring about him, you have to care about yourself. You need to have a life of your own, and the first step is spending some time apart.”

Harry felt a jolt of horror. “You don’t mean having him live somewhere else, do you?” There was no way in hell anyone was taking Coop away from him.

“I suggested that to Dan –”

“No,” Harry said immediately, preparing to marshal his arguments.

“—and he reacted in much the same way you are now,” Dr. Sherman finished calmly. “I do have to ask, Harry. Are you drinking now?”

“No. I wouldn’t do that when he’s around.”

“Okay. Dan also confirmed that you’re not drinking. That makes things easier, because if you were abusing alcohol, I would have to insist that you live separately. Codependency become highly pathological when substance abuse is involved, and that kind of dynamic could seriously endanger Dan’s recovery. So if you do start drinking again, or feel a strong urge to, I want you to contact me immediately. Understood?”

“Yeah.” Harry wasn’t worried about that. As long as Coop was around, he wasn’t going to drink. If nothing else, the shame he would experience at Coop seeing him like that was enough to dissuade him.

“Okay. With that stipulation, I believe it’s more beneficial for you to keep living together. Separating you would cause Dan a lot of stress, as I’m sure it would for you. But you do need to spend some time apart. For example, don’t take him to work with you anymore. You need that time to build your own life and your own relationships.”

“Okay,” Harry said slowly, “but what is he supposed to do all day?”

“Whatever he wants. Let him take the lead, remember? You can, and should, continue to encourage him to leave home with you to do activities you both enjoy in your free time. But think of the time you’re at work as time for him to work on his recovery in his own way. Sometimes that may mean being alone in the apartment all day. I know it’s distressing to see someone you love suffer from depression, but the best way you can support him right now is by giving him time and space. By the way, I did talk with Dan about some changes to his treatment plan. We’re moving him back to three days a week of therapy, and I’m trying an increase to his sertraline dose since he seems to be tolerating the medication well. But overall, I’m satisfied with the progress he’s been making. Keep in mind, less than four months ago, he was still in a catatonic state. He’s come a long way in such a short time, and he will continue to recover.”

Harry nodded. It still bothered him to think of Coop alone in the apartment all day, but he was willing to back off if Dr. Sherman said it was normal.

“I have one more suggestion,” Dr. Sherman continued. “You need your own social support system. Someone you can talk with about how you’re feeling. How about the friend you mentioned, the one who lives a couple hours away?”

“Yeah, I talk to him about stuff.” Harry did talk to Hawk on the phone once a week or so. He always had to stay positive during the calls, though, since Coop could hear everything he was saying.

“If he lives that close, maybe you could visit him. Or have him visit you.”

There was no chance of Harry visiting Hawk, because he intended to never set foot in Twin Peaks again. But Hawk would definitely come down to Spokane for a weekend if Harry asked. So Harry nodded again and said, “Sure, we could do that.”

“Good. Now, the hospital doesn’t do extensive outpatient care, but I would like to check back in with you both in a couple of weeks, to see how Dan is adjusting to the new dosage and how well you’re both coping. I know this is a challenging time, but you can get through it.”

On the drive home, Harry and Coop were both silent until they were almost back in Spokane. Then Coop spoke up. “Harry, I want to apologize for what I said yesterday. I shouldn’t take things out on you. The truth is, you have helped me. You are helping.”

“I’m sorry, too. I don’t want you to hide how you’re really feeling. And you can take as long as you need to get better. I’m not going anywhere. Okay?” He glanced sideways and saw Coop nod.

He had waited five years for the miracle of getting Coop back, and over a month in the hospital to hear Coop speak again. No matter how long it took for Coop to become fully himself again, Harry would wait.


	16. Chapter 16

_Day 143_

Hawk came to visit. The day after Harry and Coop’s appointment with Dr. Sherman, Harry had called Hawk. He had sketched a broad outline of the situation and brought up Dr. Sherman’s suggestion of Hawk visiting them in Spokane. Hawk had immediately said, “I can be there on Saturday morning.” Harry didn’t know what he’d done to deserve a friend like that. And so, on Saturday morning, Hawk knocked on the door to their apartment.

Harry hadn’t seen Hawk in five years, but he was exactly the same. They hugged. “Thanks for coming,” Harry said.

“I would have come sooner,” Hawk replied. “Just didn’t want to get in the way.”

Coop approached, and Hawk looked him over. “Good to see you again, Cooper.”

“You too, Hawk.” Coop also hugged Hawk, who seemed surprised but returned the embrace.

They all went to the diner down the street for breakfast. Hawk kept the conversation going by asking about Harry’s new job, stuff they had found to do in Spokane, any plans they had for the weekend. He directed many of his questions directly to Coop, which Harry appreciated. Overall, he appreciated that Hawk treated Coop just like normal. Hawk also was considerate enough not to bring up anything about Twin Peaks, and neither Harry nor Coop asked about it.

Hawk said that he could stay until Wednesday afternoon. Harry was grateful that he had used some of his vacation days to see them, when there were probably ways he could have used those days that would be much more enjoyable than hanging around Spokane with the two of them. Harry also wished they had a bigger apartment so they could at least offer Hawk a place to stay, but Hawk said he was fine with just getting a motel.

After breakfast, Harry had to go to work. He was working every day through Tuesday, which meant Hawk would be left with Coop for most of the day. Harry didn’t know whether or not that arrangement qualified as the social support system that Dr. Sherman had described, but it definitely made him feel better about going to work when he knew Hawk would be spending some time with Coop. Really, Hawk was the perfect person for the job. He was kind, a good listener, and he knew the whole story of what Coop had been through. But at the same time, he was more distant from the situation and less emotionally invested than Harry was. Harry hoped that Coop would use the opportunity to talk to Hawk about what he was feeling, especially anything that he couldn’t or didn’t want to talk about with Harry.

So Harry went off to the mall, and for the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel anxiety about being separated from Coop for the whole day. When he got home that evening, they all went out to dinner, and Coop told him about the new exhibit of Native American art he and Hawk had gone to see at the museum. It was a relief to, for once, have someone else in town who cared about Coop. It made Harry feel less alone.

* * *

_Day 147_

During Hawk’s stay, they had fallen into a comfortable routine. The three of them went to the coffee shop or diner for breakfast, then Harry would go to work while Hawk and Coop spent the day together. The two of them visited the botanical gardens, went fishing in the river, and drove up to the Mount Spokane lookout. In the evening, they would all go out to dinner then hang out in Riverfront Park, talking about what they had done that day. Coop seemed to be as happy as he ever was these days, and that in turn made Harry feel better about life in general.

Now it was Hawk’s last day in Twin Peaks. He was going to drive back to Twin Peaks in the afternoon. He and Harry had gotten up early to go fishing in Lake Coeur d’Alene. Coop had stayed behind in the apartment, insisting that Harry and Hawk should spend some time on their own. Honoring his agreement to not push Coop to do things, Harry had agreed.

Now, Harry and Hawk sat in the canoe they had rented from the marina, letting their lines drift while the morning sunlight made the lake waters shimmer. Harry wished that Coop were with them, but he decided to take his absence as an opportunity to ask for Hawk’s opinion.

“Hawk, how does Coop seem to you?”

Hawk contemplated the question. “He’s still struggling with the darkness. But I think he will overcome it. I wouldn’t have thought that was possible back when we found him that night.”

Harry nodded. Based on what both Hawk and Albert had said, he was grateful that he hadn’t seen Coop that night. Both of them had believed there was no bringing Coop back, but Harry had refused to believe that. Maybe if Harry had seen Coop in the state Hawk and Albert had, he also would have been doubtful about the possibility of recovery. On the other hand, he couldn’t imagine a scenario in which he ever would have given up on Coop.

“He asked me about you.” Hawk’s voice broke through Harry’s reverie. “About how you were back in Twin Peaks when everything went to hell. And how you were when you were in Missoula, and then when he was in the hospital.”

“What did you tell him?” The truth, of course, was that Harry had been a complete wreck during all of those time periods. But he hoped Hawk had put it in more delicate terms.

Hawk shrugged. “What _could_ I tell him?”

“What _did_ you tell him?” Harry persisted.

“I told him about how you waited for him in the woods and brought that shadow version of him. And about how you left Twin Peaks because you couldn’t face the pain of seeing that thing again. Of course, I couldn’t tell him much about Missoula, because you kind of disappeared for a while.” That was true, Harry hadn’t been in contact with Hawk for most of those five years. “But I told him that the first time I heard you sound happy again was after he took that damn coffee from you in the hospital, when you called me and said you knew he was still in there.”

Harry cleared his throat. “Well, I guess you summed it up pretty well.”

Hawk wasn’t done. “You know what he told me? He said he knew you were there from the start, from the first time you came to see him in the hospital. He couldn’t respond, or even follow what you were saying, but he knew you were there. And he said he wouldn’t have been able to find his way back without you.”

Harry looked down into the dark waters of the lake. He felt a yearning to be back with Coop. “The fish aren’t biting,” he said.

Hawk smiled. “Let’s go back to Spokane. The three of us can go to the diner for lunch before I leave.”

“Sounds good to me,” Harry said. So they went back.


	17. Chapter 17

_Day 155_

It had been a week since Hawk left, and Coop had been staying home on his own every day while Harry was at work. True to his word, Harry had not protested. It had been another week of hot weather, and now it was the hottest day yet, with near-record high temperatures. During the walk home from work, Harry could feel waves of heat radiating off the sidewalk and buildings and cars. Cooking dinner at home was not an appealing prospect, since the tiny apartment tended to heat up whenever the stovetop or oven was in use. Harry decided he’d ask Coop if he wanted to go to the park so they could just get some hot dogs or something and sit close enough to the falls to get cooled by the spray. Coop would probably not need much convincing, he had to be sick of that tiny overheated apartment by now.

Except, when Harry reached the top of the stairs, he saw that the door to the apartment was open. Maybe Coop had opened it in a futile attempt to get a cross-breeze going inside. Harry went inside, frowning. The apartment was empty. The TV was on, playing a commercial break, but there was no sign of Coop. Just to make sure, Harry checked the bathroom, then went back to stand in the middle of the empty living room, since there were no other rooms to check. Maybe Coop had finally had enough of the heat and gone out to the park or somewhere on his own. But Harry felt uneasy. Coop had been so resistant to leaving the apartment on his own, it seemed unlikely that he would suddenly decide to venture out without telling Harry about it in advance. And Coop knew what time Harry got home from work, and he had to know that Harry would be worried when he came home to an empty apartment. The last thing Coop ever wanted to do was worry Harry, so he would at least have left a note if he was going out. Harry looked around the apartment again to see if there was a note anywhere that he had somehow overlooked, but it wasn’t like there were that many places to leave one. Then his eyes fell on Coop’s shoes, still in their usual spot by the door, and his sense of unease grew.

Just then, the commercial break ended, and the TV program returned. “And now,” the narrator said, “back to Inside the Horror, our exclusive look at the case of the Twin Peaks Killer.” Harry whirled around to look at the screen, where the familiar FBI’s Most Wanted photo of Coop was overlaid with lurid text spelling out the name of the program. It was some kind of tabloid news show, apparently doing a retrospective of the case. As the title shot dissolved into footage of the woods around Twin Peaks, the narrator continued, “The eighth murder was perhaps more gruesome than any of the others that had preceded it. By now, the killer had honed his craft and clearly took pleasure in the dismemberment of his victims –”

Harry lunged for the remote and turned off the TV. His heart pounded. Coop had seen that TV program. That was why he had left the apartment without leaving Harry a note or turning off the TV or putting on his shoes or closing the door behind him. Dr. Sherman had warned Harry that Coop might behave unpredictably if exposed to any triggers that evoked the trauma he had experienced. Seeing his own face on TV, footage and photos of the crime scenes, graphic descriptions of the murders – all of that would definitely qualify as a giant trigger. Harry spared a moment to curse the TV channel for being so irresponsible to show something like that. Did they not consider the feelings of the victims’ families? Of course, they didn’t care, they just wanted ratings, and there were plenty of viewers happy to tune in to watch the story like it was a horror movie rather than something that had happened to real people.

But he would have time to be angry later, right now he just needed to find Coop. Harry had no idea how long ago Coop had left, but it looked like the TV program was about half an hour in. So, assuming that the program was in fact the trigger that had prompted Coop to leave, he couldn’t have gotten far in less than half an hour with no shoes. Harry rushed down the stairs and crossed the street to the park, since that seemed the mostly likely place for Coop to have gone. But Coop wasn’t in any of their usual hangouts, on the bench that overlooked the falls or on the lawn by the carousel or in the sculpture garden. Despite the heat, Harry ran as fast he could along the loop across the bridge and back down the other side of the river. The park was crowded with people trying to beat the heat, and Harry anxiously scanned the crowds as he ran. But there was still no sign of Coop.

Having checked the park, Harry went back to the apartment, hoping that maybe Coop had returned in his absence. But he hadn’t. Harry grabbed a post-it note and wrote on it, “Coop – stay here and wait for me.” He stuck it to the door so there would be no way Coop would miss it if he came back. Then he went out to do a circuit of all the other possible places Coop could have gone. He went to the coffee shop across the street, the diner on the next block, the library, the museum. They were regulars at all those places, so he asked the staff at each location if they had seen Coop, but they all said no. Harry wondered if maybe Coop had gone to the mall to find Harry and they had somehow missed each other in the street. So he went back to the mall and let himself into the security office. He scanned the wall of video screens showing security footage from all over the mall, but Coop was nowhere to be seen.

Harry went back to the apartment, his heart sinking when he saw the note he had left still stuck to the door. He stood in the empty apartment, trying not to panic. It had been over an hour since he had come home to find Coop gone, and he was out of ideas of where to look. He needed help. He toyed with the idea of calling the police, then decided against it. He knew cops well enough to know that many of them didn’t pay close attention to distinctions between criminal suspects and mentally ill people in need of help. Besides, he didn’t want to draw any unnecessary official attention to Coop’s continued existence, just in case that resulted in the authorities looking into his identity and realizing it was made up.

So, instead, he got Dr. Sherman’s business card out. It was past 7 pm now, so she likely would have left her office by now, but she had written her home number on the card. He was relieved when she answered right away. “Doc, it’s Harry Truman. I’m sorry to call you at home, but I didn’t know what else to do—”

“It’s okay, Harry,” she said, in that soothing-the-crazy-person voice she had obviously honed with years of practice. “Just tell me what happened.”

“Coop—” Harry quickly corrected himself. “ _Dan_ is gone.” He really was out of his mind with worry. That was the first time he had ever slipped up and used Coop’s real name to her instead of the pseudonym. Hoping she wouldn’t notice, he went on, “I came home from work and he wasn’t here in the apartment. But the TV was on, and it was a show about the Twin Peaks Killer, and I think he saw it and ran off somewhere, and I don’t think he’s even wearing shoes –”

“Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”

“Yes, I had lots of ideas,” Harry said, frustrated, “but I already checked, and he’s not in any of those places.”

“Tell me more about this TV show,” Dr. Sherman said slowly.

“I don’t know, I only saw about ten seconds of it, but they were showing the picture of – of the killer, and the crime scenes, and stuff like that.”

“And how long has he been gone?”

“At least an hour. It looks like he left in a hurry, he didn’t even close the door.”

“Okay. Harry, I’m going to call the police and notify them to be on the lookout for him.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Harry couldn’t believe this was happening. “I know cops, they can get a bit carried away –”

“We have a good relationship with the local law enforcement agencies. They’ve often been helpful in tracking down patients who need help.” Dr. Sherman’s voice became very gentle. “And I think Dan needs help right now. If he saw that TV show, it almost certainly triggered his trauma, and it’s possible he may be endangering himself right now.”

“And if I hadn’t followed your advice about leaving him alone during the day, this wouldn’t have happened.” Harry didn’t know where the angry words came from. He didn’t feel angry, he just felt desperate and scared. Realizing that lashing out at the one person who might be able to help was not going to do any good, he immediately apologized. “Sorry, Doc. I’m just kind of losing it here.”

“That’s understandable, and we can talk about that later,” she said, still sounding as unperturbed as ever. “But I need to hang up so I can notify the police now, and I’ll call you back when I hear anything.”

“Just leave me a message on my answering machine. I’m going to go out and check a few more places.” Harry couldn’t really think of anywhere else Coop could have gone, but he couldn’t stand the thought of sitting here in the apartment waiting for the phone to ring.

So he went out again. This time he drove around the block, spiraling outward in an ever-expanding radius away from the apartment. Every time he saw people hanging out on the street – people gathered on their stoops, diners at outdoor restaurants, homeless people sitting on curbs – he pulled over and asked them if they had seen a guy with scars on his face. No one had. Now that it was nighttime, Harry kept thinking he saw Coop in every man of similar height and build walking the dark streets. He would slam on the brakes and take a closer look, only to see that it was a stranger. Though dispirited, Harry kept up the search. He did go back to the apartment every hour or so to see if Dr. Sherman had left him a message. On his third return visit, he saw the green light blinking on the machine. Heart racing, he pressed the play button. There were two messages.

“Harry, we found him.” At Dr. Sherman’s calm announcement on the recording, Harry sank onto the sofa in relief. He leaned his head against his hands as he listened to the rest of the message. “He was walking along the shoulder of Highway 2, about ten miles north of Spokane.” That was the highway that led to Twin Peaks. “A state trooper driving by stopped out of concern that Dan was in danger from the traffic.” Damn, Coop could have been hit by a car walking along a highway shoulder at night. “The trooper recognized him from the notification we sent out and is bringing him here to Medical Lake right now. Since I haven’t seen him yet, I can’t tell you anything about his condition, but I wanted to let you know right away. I’ll call again when I’ve examined him.”

The machine beeped, and the second message played. It was Dr. Sherman again, this time with a hint of tension in her voice. “Harry, I just examined Dan. He’s mildly dehydrated and his feet are cut up pretty bad.” That’s right, Coop had apparently walked ten miles barefoot. Harry winced at the thought, but the next part of the message ratcheted up his worry to the next level. “He’s also catatonic again. It’s not uncommon for patients to have a temporary relapse, especially when exposed to a trigger for their trauma. There’s no reason to believe that this episode will be nearly as prolonged as the initial one. In fact, it may just be a fleeting state that will quickly resolve on its own. But all the same, I think it’s best if you come to Medical Lake as soon as possible. We’re in the intake building.”

Harry was on his way out the door before the message had even finished playing. Driving along I-90 to Medical Lake, he had a terrible, heartsick feeling. He didn’t know if he could stand seeing Coop shut down and cut off from the world again, but he knew he had to, because he had to bring him back again. He feared that every minute Coop was locked inside his own mind would make it harder to free him. So Harry drove as fast as he could, passing every car on the interstate, and made it to Medical Lake in record time.

The doors to the intake building were locked, no doubt because it was nearly 11 pm now. But a security guard immediately showed up to let him in. “Dr. Sherman wants you to wait here,” the guard told Harry, gesturing to the waiting room. Ignoring him, Harry pushed past into the hallway that led to the exam rooms. “Hey, you can’t go in there yet,” the guard protested weakly.

Dr. Sherman stuck her head out of one of the rooms further down the hall. “It’s okay, just let him in,” she told the guard.

Needing no further invitation, Harry stepped past Dr. Sherman into the exam room. It wasn’t an office, like the one he and Coop had visited for their outpatient session with Dr. Sherman. Instead, it was a regular medical exam room. Coop was sitting on the exam table. He was hooked up to an IV of clear fluid, and his feet were bandaged. He was looking straight ahead with that same unfocused gaze that he had had for that month in the hospital. Seeing that sent a sharp, twisting pain through Harry.

Harry walked slowly up to Coop and squeezed his hand, just like he used to during their hospital visits. This time, there was no return squeeze, and Harry’s heart sank further. “Coop,” Harry said. He kept his voice barely above a whisper, partly because he didn’t trust himself to speak any louder, partly because Dr. Sherman was still standing in the doorway to the exam room. “I’m here, okay? Hawk said you told him you could always tell when I was there in the hospital. And I’m not leaving you, not ever. No matter how long it takes, I’ll wait for you. But if you can –” Harry’s voice broke, and he cleared his throat before continuing, “if you can, please come back now.” He kept gripping Coop’s hand between his own.

And then, there was gentle pressure on his hand as Coop finally returned the squeeze. And a moment later, Coop’s eyes focused on Harry’s face. “Harry,” Coop said.

“That was fast,” Dr. Sherman said from the door, sounding impressed.

But Harry kept didn’t turn away from Coop, afraid that he would get lost again. “Are you okay?” he asked Coop, a bit desperately.

In response, Coop’s eyes filled with tears. Wrapping his arms around Coop, Harry realized he had never seen Coop cry before. Coop leaned his forehead against Harry’s chest and took a deep, shuddering breath.

“On TV, they were showing pictures of – of what happened in Twin Peaks,” Coop said, his voice muffled by Harry’s shirt.

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have had to see that.”

“When I saw that, it was like I was suddenly back there. I wondered if I had ever left. I couldn’t tell if I was the real me or the other one.” Harry looked nervously back over his shoulder, but luckily Dr. Sherman had gone, apparently having decided to give them some privacy. Coop continued, “I realized that there was no way to know. Back then, I could see through its eyes whenever it killed, so maybe I was seeing through its eyes again. Maybe I had finally become that thing, or maybe we were the same all along. And then I realized that you were coming home soon. And I thought if there was any chance I could be that thing, or it could be me, I had to leave before you got home. Because there’s no way I could watch it—” Coop choked through a sob “ – not to you. So I left. I started walking toward Twin Peaks. I thought maybe I could lock myself up in the Black Lodge again and maybe then everyone would be safe.” Coop paused, then said, “I don’t know what I was thinking. It would have taken me days to walk to Twin Peaks.”

To Harry, the distance to Twin Peaks was the least objectionable part of the whole story, but he just kept holding Coop close. “That thing is dead,” Harry said. “And it was never you. So there’s no reason for you to ever go back to the Black Lodge or to Twin Peaks.”

“I know that now,” Coop said bleakly. “I just wasn’t thinking clearly. I’m sorry, Harry. I keep hurting you, over and over again.”

Harry pulled back so he could look at Coop. “It’s not your fault. Just, if that happens again, if you’re not sure who are, come find me. I’ll remind you.” He gently wiped away Coop’s tears with his thumbs, the scar tissue rough against his skin.

There was a soft knock on the door, and Dr. Sherman stuck her head into the room. “Is it all right if I come in?”

Harry looked at Coop, who nodded, and Harry said, “Sure thing, doc.”

Dr. Sherman asked Coop a bunch of questions about what he had experienced and how he was feeling now. “Well, it sounds like it was indeed a fleeting catatonic episode in response to a flashback,” she concluded, seemingly satisfied. “Since we’ve clearly identified the trigger, and since you came out of it so quickly, I don’t think there’s much cause for concern. Harry, that was wonderful how quickly you were able to guide him back. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“What is that you’re giving him?” Harry asked, gesturing at the IV.

“Just some fluids. It was a hot day for a long walk like that with no water.”

“And what about his feet?”

“Some lacerations, and also some burns from the hot pavement. I had a nurse clean and bandage the injuries. With that kind of dirty wound, there’s a heightened risk of infection, so it will be important to change the bandages daily. I’m also prescribing antibiotics. And Dan, you’ll have to stay off your feet as much as possible for the next two weeks so that they can heal.”

Great waves of relief were washing over Harry, that neither the physical or the psychological damage was as bad as it could have been. “Thanks, doc. And, uh, I’m sorry that I got short with you earlier. You’ve really gone above and beyond to help us, and we appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome.” She smiled at them both. “Now, for a relapse like this, standard protocol is to stay for a few hours for observation. Given the hour, it’s probably best if you just stay the night. We can get an overnight room set up for you over in the main building.”

Coop’s hand shot out and grabbed Harry’s arm. “I’d rather just go home with Harry,” he said quietly. Harry agreed. Much as Harry wanted to follow Dr. Sherman’s advice, there was no way he could go home to an empty apartment tonight. If he had to, he would just sleep in his truck in the parking lot, so at least Coop would be nearby.

“Harry can stay here with you if you want,” Dr. Sherman said reassuringly. “We’re not checking you into a secure ward, so the visitation rules are less strict. Honestly, I think it’s best not to separate you right now. We can put a cot in the room. Is that okay with you, Harry?”

“Yeah,” Harry said gratefully. “Thank you.”

“I’ll have the staff bring you some food too. I’m sure you both must be hungry.”

After the hospital staff had set them up in the room and brought them their meals, they tried to go to sleep. Harry lay on his cot, staring up at the ceiling. He felt wide awake. The adrenaline from the day’s crisis was still coursing through his veins, his mind still racing with “what if” scenarios. What if that trooper hadn’t found Coop, what if Coop had gotten hurt badly, what if Harry hadn’t been able to bring him out of his catatonic state –

“Harry?” Coop whispered his name, as if not sure if he was awake or not.

“Yeah? You need something?” Harry rolled over on to his side so he could look at Coop’s face, dimly lit by the ambient light streaming under the door from the hallway.

“I just –” Coop struggled for words. “I realize it probably doesn’t seem like it, but I do appreciate everything you do for me. I know I haven’t made things easy for you.”

“Don’t worry about that. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

They were silent for a few minutes. Then Coop continued. “Hawk told me that you waited for me in the woods for over a day, back in Glastonbury Grove.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“And then you kept coming back to see me in the hospital, every single day.”

“Of course. What else would I do?”

“I haven’t done anything to deserve that kind of loyalty.”

“You deserve it. Just because of who you are. You’re worth it.”

Coop didn’t say anything else after that, and eventually Harry drifted off to sleep.


	18. Chapter 18

_Day 156_

In the morning, Dr. Sherman gave Coop a clean bill of health, or at least declared him well enough to go home. She sent him away with crutches, a prescription for antibiotics, and strict order to stay off his feet until they healed. An orderly brought Coop out front with a wheelchair and helped Harry get him into the truck. On the way home, Harry stopped at the pharmacy and went in to fill the prescription while Coop waited in the truck. When they got back to their block, Harry deliberately drove up onto the sidewalk next to their door.

“Harry, are you aware that this is not a valid parking space?” Coop asked, with what might have been amusement in his voice.

“Yeah. Just wanted to get you as close to the door as possible.”

Harry got Coop’s new crutches out of the pickup bed and handed them to him. It turned out that getting as close to the door as possible had been a good idea, parking violations be damned, because Coop’s progress was slow and painful. The crutches were not all that helpful, because both his feet were equally cut up, but he used them as supports. Harry winced every time Coop took a step. Although Coop’s face, as usual, was expressionless, the pain every footfall caused him was clear from the tense, halting way he was moving.

When they got to the stairwell that led up the second floor, Harry took the crutches from Coop and brought them up to the apartment, since they would be worse than useless on the stairs. When he came back down, Coop was sitting on the bottom stair, apparently needing a break before tackling the stairwell. “Please go move your truck now before parking enforcement comes by,” Coop said, pain in his voice.

Seeing that the illegal parking job was getting on Coop’s nerves, Harry obliged. By the time he came back, Coop was standing and had moved up a few stairs. Harry tried to help by supporting some of Coop’s weight on his shoulder, but it was awkward in the narrow stairwell. Harry really wished that the apartment was on the first floor, or at least in a building with an elevator. After the third time he apologized helplessly, Coop said in fond exasperation, “Harry, stop apologizing. I’m the one who went out without shoes. I’m certain If I had asked, you would have advised me against it.”

Finally, they reached the top of the stairs. Entering the apartment, they collapsed together onto the couch. “I’m calling in sick today,” Harry said, pulling off the slippers the hospital had given Coop to wear home. Coop didn’t even try to argue.

* * *

_Day 157_

Harry sat on the couch in the apartment. Coop was lying down on the couch with his feet in Harry’s lap so that Harry could change the bandages.

“I could call in sick again,” Harry said as he inspected Coop’s feet. The skin was still a mess of raw cuts and burns, oozing fluid, but there was no sign of infection.

“No, you should go. You can’t miss work two days in a row.”

Harry sighed and finished changing the bandages. Coop was right. Harry hadn’t been working at the mall for that long, so it wasn’t like he had a huge store of sick days saved up. And he needed to work so they could live. So that meant he needed to leave Coop alone today, but he hated that idea. He knew that, all day long, he would be afraid of coming home and finding Coop gone again.

“How does that feel?” Harry asked, putting the finishing touches on the bandages.

“It’s fine.”

“Do you need me to get anything for you before I go?”

Coop looked at the coffee table, which Harry had covered with every conceivable object that Coop might need during the day. Harry had filled a large travel mug with coffee so that it would stay hot and Coop wouldn’t need to get up to make more. He had made him a sandwich and also laid out a variety of snacks and plates and utensils. There was also an array of books and magazines. Harry had pointedly left the TV remote on the other side of the room, since they had agreed that Coop wouldn’t watch TV unsupervised again, in case of any further incidents of irresponsible journalism regarding the Twin Peaks Killer case.

“I’m sure I have access to everything I could possibly need,” Coop said patiently.

“If you do need anything, call me, okay?” Harry had also put the cordless phone and the number for the mall security office on the coffee table within easy reach. “And I’ll call during my lunch break and see how it’s going.”

“Very well. But you should leave now, or you’re going to be late for work.”

Harry had been stalling, still reluctant to leave, but now he gently squeezed Coop’s ankle and stood up. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Have a good day.” Coop was already sipping coffee from his travel mug and opening a book.

Once he got to work, Harry holed up in the security office. He had a phone call to make, and it was not one he was looking forward to. Coop’s visit to the hospital had been covered by the state, because it was a relapse of the original condition for which he had been committed. But the whole incident had made Harry realize how irresponsible he had been for not getting Coop’s health insurance situation sorted out earlier. He had been paralyzed by the bureaucratic challenge of not having a usable social security number for Coop, but it was time to figure out a solution to that problem. Plus, the disability payments Coop was entitled to would help their overall budget situation and maybe make it possible to move into a bigger place soon. So Harry had decided to treat this most recent disaster as a wake-up call and finally tackle the social security number conundrum. But he only knew one person who might be able to help. So, steeling himself, he dialed Albert’s number on the security office phone.

“Albert, it’s Harry,” he said when Albert answered.

“What is it?” Albert sounded concerned, most likely because it wasn’t like Harry to initiate contact with him.

“Everything’s fine.” That was more or less true. Harry didn’t want to tell Albert, of all people, about Coop’s recent relapse. Albert called Coop every couple of weeks anyway, so Coop could tell him about it himself if he wanted to. But now Harry just wanted to conduct his business with Albert as quickly as possible so he could stop talking to him. “I just need to ask a favor.”

“I can’t wait.”

“I need to sign Coop up for disability payments and health insurance. But the forms ask for his social security number –”

“—which you can’t use because it’s associated with a dead serial killer as far as the government knows.”

“Yeah. I mean, that is what the government thinks, right?” Harry wasn’t clear on what the official government position was on the Twin Peaks Killer case.

“Other than my office, yes. Obviously, I know the real story, and Gordon does, and maybe his supervisor, I’m not sure. But the Bureau is not sharing that information with other agencies. It’s all tied up somehow with whatever top-secret crap that military installation is working on, and it would raise too many questions if the story got out publicly. Contrary to popular belief, the government is not very good at conspiracies, so the safest policy is usually to just shut up and involve as few people as possible. Suffice it to say, the Bureau will not be notifying the Social Security Administration about Coop’s true status.”

“So, officially, he’s still a dead serial killer.” That was depressing. Surely anyone who knew Coop realized that he could have never done the things he was accused of. But at least as long as he was believed to be dead, he could live below the radar. For that reason, even if it was possible to let the real story be known publicly, Harry didn’t want it to be. If seeing a news story about the Twin Peaks Killer had been enough to send Coop into a tailspin, the attention that would follow the revelations about what had actually happened would be far worse.

“Officially, yes,” Albert confirmed.

“So where does that leave us with the social security number? Could you maybe get us a fake one to use?”

“Why would you think I could do that?”

“You’re the only person I know who works for the government. Believe me, if I knew anyone else to ask, I would.”

There was a long pause. “Okay,” Albert finally said. “I know some guys who work on identity theft cases. I might be able to covertly get some information from them about the best way to fabricate a social security number. If nothing else, I can track down someone they’re investigating and buy a list of SSNs off of them. But it might take some time.”

“Thanks.”

“Anytime. I very much appreciate the opportunity you’ve given me to violate federal law.”

After Harry got off the phone with Albert, he called Coop, just to make sure he was doing okay on his own. It was going to be a long day.


	19. Chapter 19

_Day 185_

Thing were looking up. The week before, Coop’s new illicit social security card had arrived in the mail, courtesy of Albert. (“Don’t ask what I had to do to get that number,” Albert had told Harry when he had called with the good news. Harry hadn’t.) Harry had immediately filed the disability application, and it looked like the payments and health insurance would kick in within a few more weeks. Best of all, Coop’s feet had healed so that he could walk normally again, and for the past couple of weeks he had been taking advantage of his newfound mobility by leaving the apartment on his own while Harry was at work. He only ever went to the park, the coffee shop, the museum, or the library, and he always told Harry where he was going and made sure to be back in the apartment by the time Harry got home. But Harry felt a lot better about going to work when he knew Coop was out doing stuff, not just sitting at home alone. It felt like maybe Coop was starting to want to live and engage with the world again.

Now Harry was on his lunch break at work, and he headed to the food court. He got a pleasant surprise when he saw Coop standing at the coffee cart chatting with Katie the barista. As he walked up, Coop was congratulating her on the good scores she had gotten on her LSATs.

“Harry, you didn’t tell me Dan was coming in today,” Katie said to him. She had been asking Harry about Coop for months now, since Coop hadn’t set foot in the mall since the incident in the food court.

“I didn’t know,” Harry said, and grinned at Coop.

Coop shrugged. “I was nearby, and I knew it was your break, so I thought you might like to have lunch together.”

“Absolutely.” They said goodbye to Katie, bought their lunches, and sat down. Coop seemed to be handling the crowds well and was more talkative than usual. Getting out of the apartment seemed to have done him some good, as Harry had hoped.

“Harry, do you mind if I borrow your camera?” Coop asked as he applied mayo to his sandwich.

“Camera?” Oh yeah, he had an old camera stashed in his closet. He hadn’t used in in years. “Sure. It might not have film in it though.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Well, they have a camera shop in here. If you know what kind of film it needs, we could go buy some while we’re here.”

So, after lunch, they walked over to the camera shop. Coop pointed out the film he wanted, and Harry bought several rolls of it. He didn’t ask what the camera was for, and Coop didn’t say anything about it.

But when Harry got home from work that evening, Coop was sitting at the table drinking coffee, the camera and its manual on the table. He was reading a library book on photography techniques. It looked like Coop had picked up a hobby. It made Harry’s heart feel lighter, to see Coop interested in _doing_ something again. He was apparently tackling it with the complete seriousness with which the old Coop had approached any task, with the intent to submerse himself in it and do it well. And taking pictures meant going outside, so hopefully this would give Coop even more incentive to go out and explore on his own during the day.

As Harry cooked dinner, Coop continued to switch back and forth between examining the buttons on the camera, consulting the manual, and reading through the book. When dinner was ready, Coop shoved his photography stuff aside to make room for his plate, and they spent the meal talking about Harry’s work day and Coop’s plans to check out a new exhibit at the museum the next day. It was the most relaxed and normal conversation they had had since in years, since _before_ , and it made Harry so damn happy he couldn’t stop grinning for hours afterward.

* * *

_Day 227_

Fall was in the air as Harry walked home from work. It was cool and crisp, and the red leaves of the street trees stood out against the bright blue sky. When he entered the apartment, Coop was sitting at the table, manila folders spread out in a jumble.

“Hey, Coop.” Harry kicked off his shoes.

“Hello, Harry. How was work?”

“Fine. Kind of boring. We’re starting preparations for Halloween night though. It’s going to be chaos with all those kids running around trick-or-treating at the different stores. Of course, the night before will be even worse. Teenagers use Devil’s Night as an excuse to vandalize everything in sight.”

“I have no doubt in your capability to manage the situation.” Coop was pulling 6x8 photos out of the manila folders and sorting them into piles.

“We’ll see.” Harry sat at the table across from Coop. “Are those the photos you’ve been taking?” Harry hadn’t seen any of Coop’s photos yet.

“Yes, this is the first batch that I got developed today.”

“Looks like you’ve been busy.” There had to be hundreds of photos. “Can I look at them?”

“You can look at these ones.” Coop shoved a small pile over to Harry. “Those are the ones that are of acceptable quality. The others are all flawed in one or more respects.” He gestured at a much larger stack of photos that apparently hadn’t made the cut.

Glancing at the rejects, Harry thought that even those ones looked pretty good, but he shrugged and started going through the pile Coop had deemed acceptable. Quickly, Harry realized they were more than acceptable. They were outstanding. The subject matter was a bit bleak; Coop seemed drawn to things that were in various states of decay and disrepair. But the composition and lighting were masterful. There was one of fall leaves laid out like a mosaic on the grass. Another was of a railroad bridge arching away, covered in graffiti. There was a black-and-white one of an old brick building on a rainy day, streetlights reflecting in puddles.

“Coop, these are amazing,” Harry said, looking at a photo of an ancient rusted car Coop had apparently found somewhere. With greenery sprouting from it, it was in the process of being reclaimed by nature. “Were you always into photography?”

“Not in any serious way. It was something I always wanted to pursue, but I never had the time before.”

“Well, you’ve got a serious talent for it.” Harry didn’t know much about photography, or art in general, but these pictures were at least as good as any he and Coop had perused at the museum.

“Thank you.” Coop was still busying himself with the task of sorting through the stacks from the manila folders, but from the way he ducked his head, it was clear that he was pleased that Harry liked the photos. “It’s something I’ve found myself enjoying a great deal. It forces me to pay attention to the world. And it reassures me that I’m the one controlling what I’m looking at, when I frame the shot and adjust the focus.”

Harry thought about that as he continued perusing the photos. Photography gave Coop a sense of control, which was what he had lost when he’d been forced to witness horrors through that creature’s eyes. And the photos provided physical proof that what he was seeing was real. Part of the reason Harry liked the photos so much, he realized, is that they allowed him to see what Coop did. And the world looked like a strange and beautiful place through Coop’s eyes. Things that most people would have just walked by, he saw as art. Looking at those photos, seeing what Coop saw, made Harry feel closer to him. It was a connection to the old Coop, the one who saw the extraordinary in the ordinary, the part of Coop that Harry had believed all along was still there.

Harry decided that he was going to do everything he could to encourage this new hobby. “You know, the fall colors are pretty nice around Leavenworth this time of year. For Washington, I mean. It is the Evergreen State. But they’ve got a lot of larches up there.”

“What are larches? Have I seen them before?” Coop asked, still interested as ever in trees.

“I don’t know, we don’t have them down here in Spokane.” There were plenty of larches around Twin Peaks, but of course Harry didn’t want to think about that. “They’re deciduous conifers. They’re needleleaf trees, but every fall the needles turn yellow and then drop off. When you have a lot of them, like around Leavenworth, the whole hillside will be gold, and it’s really pretty with the mountains above.”

“It sounds like an excellent photography opportunity.”

“So let’s go tomorrow. I’ve got the next two days off. It’s about a five-hour drive, but we could get there by early afternoon, spend the night, then come back the day after. The fall colors should be around their peak now. And we’ll have to drive through the Wenatchee Valley to get there. They grow the best apples in the state. I’m sure we’ll able to find some good apple pie.” Harry grinned.

Coop appeared to think it over for a moment, then nodded. “That sounds excellent. Thank you, Harry.”

Harry’s smile widened. He hadn’t expected that Coop would agree to go. They hadn’t ever really gone anywhere, and it had been difficult enough convincing Coop to leave the apartment. A mini-vacation had seemed too much to hope for. But maybe the enticement of unusual trees and apple pie had been enough. Or maybe Coop was tired of wandering around Spokane looking for interesting photography subjects. Or maybe, just maybe, Coop was finally feeling better and was willing to engage with the world in a deeper way. Harry had hoped that before and been wrong, but he was never going to stop hoping.


	20. Chapter 20

_Day 244_

Harry walked through the streets on his way home from work, beneath the autumn leaves still clinging to their branches. The past couple of weeks had been busy, which was a nice change of pace. On all Harry’s days off, he and Coop had driven somewhere so that Coop could take photos. They had gone west to the Columbia River, and Coop had taken apocalyptic-looking black-and-white pictures of the great concrete arch of the Grand Coulee Dam. They had driven south through the Walla Walla Valley, where Coop had explored different angles for capturing the neat geometric rows of the vineyards, burnished orange in their fall colors. Coop had asked Harry about Missoula a few times, so they had taken one long day to drive there and back. They had walked along the Clark Fork River, and Harry had pointed out the ancient wave-cut lake shorelines high on the mountain slopes above the University of Montana campus.

On their outings, Coop yammered on about depth of field and shutter speed and ISO and a lot of other things Harry didn’t understand but enjoyed listening to. He enjoyed watching Coop at work, too. Coop would sometimes stand in the same place for an hour or more, waiting for the light to become just right, or would make minute changes in his position while staring through the viewfinder, trying to find the perfect angle. And all the while, Harry wandered around, trying to see the scene the way Coop saw it. Every time they picked up a newly developed batch of photos, they would sit at the table in the apartment and go through them together. Harry was always astonished at how much more beautiful, how much more real, the places looked in Coop’s photos than how they looked when they were standing right there.

Now, Harry went up the stairs to the apartment, having some difficulty opening the door because his arms were full. Coop apparently heard his struggle from inside the apartment and came over to open the door for him. “Hello, Harry. What’s all this?”

“Just a second.” Harry dropped his two large shopping bags on the floor and placed the small cardboard box on the table. He opened the doors to the kitchen closet and pulled a lighter and a small candle off the shelf above the stove. Returning to the table, he opened the box, stuck a candle into one of the cupcakes he had picked up at the bakery on the way home from work, and lit it. “Happy birthday, Coop,” he said, handing the cupcake over.

“It is my birthday,” Coop said slowly, like he had forgotten when his birthday was, or what a birthday was. Harry only knew the date because he had asked Coop for it months ago when he was filling out the forms for his disability application. “I’m –” Coop paused, adding up the years – “thirty-six now.”

“Yeah. Still young.” Pushing through the bitterness he felt about five years being stolen from Coop’s life, Harry smiled. “Make a wish.”

Coop blew out the candle, and they sat and ate their cupcakes. Harry reached for the shopping bags he had brought home. “I got you something,” Harry mumbled, suddenly self-conscious. “It’s not wrapped or anything. I was going to get it anyway, but I figured now was a good occasion.”

Coop took the bags and pulled out his new camera. “Harry, this is the model I wanted,” he said, surprise in his voice. “How did you know?”

“You look at it every time we go into the camera store to buy film.” As Coop continued pulling stuff out of the bags, Harry added, “I didn’t really know what accessories you needed, but Larry from the store recommended all that stuff. If it’s not what you need, we can take it back.” There was a telephoto lens and a macro lens and a tripod, not to mention the case and the straps and the lens covers and filters and about a million rolls of film.

“It’s exactly what I need.” Coop stared at the array of equipment spread across the table. “But can we afford all this?”

Harry rejoiced silently at Coop’s use of “we” instead of “you”. For months, Coop had been acting like he saw himself as an imposition in Harry’s life. Maybe now he was finally starting to get that their lives were shared. “Yeah, of course,” Harry said in response to the question. “We’re doing fine, especially now that we have your disability payments coming in. And, hey, I just found out that Chuck, my supervisor, is retiring at the end of the year. I’m in the running to be his replacement, and that would mean a raise. So if all goes well, maybe we can even move in to a bigger place after the new year.”

“I’m sure you’ll be chosen for the promotion. You’re by far the best worker on the entire security staff.”

Most of the other security guards were either confused old guys or power-hungry wannabe cops, but Harry accepted the compliment in the spirit it was given. “Well, we’ll see, I guess.”

Coop took his new camera out of its box and held it up, inspecting it as if it were a precious gemstone. “Thank you for the camera. It was a very thoughtful gift. I’m excited to start using it.”

That was, Harry realized, the first time he had heard Coop say he was excited, or happy, or experiencing any positive emotion, since before. He did look excited, too. Not on his face, which was as expressionless as ever, but in the way he was sorting through and examining all his new equipment. “You’re a top-notch photographer, Coop,” Harry said. “You deserve good equipment. You’ve been taking great photos with that old beat-up camera, so I can’t wait to see what you can do with a decent one. You want to get up early tomorrow and head out to the park for sunrise? It’s supposed to be partly sunny, should be good light.”

“That would be an excellent first test of the new system.”

Harry spent the evening sitting on the couch, ostensibly flipping through the latest issue of _Field and Stream_. But what he was really doing was watching Coop familiarize himself with his new camera equipment. Coop took the different lenses on and off, adjusted the camera settings, and even spent a good amount of time reading the manual. Harry had never seen anyone read a manual like it was a novel before, but that was what Coop was doing. As he watched, Harry felt a sense of profound gratitude that Coop had come back. Maybe he wasn’t yet completely back, but there was enough there to hold on to, enough that it was possible to imagine a future.

His thoughts were interrupted by a question from Coop, out of nowhere. “Harry, would it still be possible for me to see that surgeon for a consultation?”

“Sure.” Harry was a bit taken aback, since the last time he had broached the topic of reconstructive surgery, Coop had been very much against it. “If you want, I can call and make an appointment tomorrow.”

Coop had laid down the camera manual and was now looking at him. “I don’t know. I find myself conflicted about the prospect. On the one hand, it would make things easier if I looked more normal.”

“Did someone give you a hard time again?” Harry was already outraged on Coop’s behalf at the very idea.

“Not in any flagrant way. You know that people always stare. I don’t really mind, but at the same time I would rather not be the subject of that kind of attention, since I’ve been out in public more lately.”

“Makes sense. So why are you conflicted about it?”

Coop fidgeted with the camera strap. “If I get the surgery, do you think I would look the way I used to?”

“I don’t know. I guess the surgeon would be able to tell us that.”

Coop was rubbing at the scars on his face, as he tended to do whenever this subject came up. “I don’t want to look like that. I don’t want to ever see that face again.”

Harry got up and grabbed the other chair, pulling it over right next to Coop. “It’s your decision,” he said, reaching out and gently pulling Coop’s hands back down to the table. “But that monster already took so much from you. I don’t want it to take away your own face too.” Harry reached out his own hand and lightly brushed a stray hair away from Coop’s forehead. The scarred skin underneath his fingertips felt like leather.

“And what about my insurance?” Coop suddenly changed the subject, as if looking for another objection. “Isn’t this elective surgery? That’s typically not covered by insurance plans.”

“I don’t know. Sounds like another question for the surgeon.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. It’s up to you.”

“As I said, I’m conflicted. Your thoughts on the matter will be valuable in helping me decide.”

Harry sighed. “Look, it’s just a consultation, right? So if we go to that, we’ll have more information, and you can decide then.”

Coop nodded. “That sounds reasonable.”

“Okay. I’ll call and make the appointment tomorrow.”

Harry was disturbed at the amount of self-loathing Coop still felt toward his own face. That same face was the one Harry had wanted to see more than anything for over five years. He was pretty sure Coop knew that, and that that was why he had asked for his advice. Harry knew he had to tread carefully here and not let his own wishes influence what Coop chose to do. He did want Coop to get the surgery, but he wanted him to do it for himself, not for Harry. As Dr. Sherman always said, it was important to respect Coop’s autonomy.

They went to bed soon after that. After all, they still had an early morning ahead of them to capture the golden hour.

* * *

_Day 251_

It was a long day at the surgeon’s office. There was lots of poking and prodding and scanning of Coop’s face with various machines. Finally, the surgeon, a cheerful guy who introduced himself as Dr. Chandra, came into the exam room to talk about their options.

“Well, there are two separate operations I would recommend, but we could do them in one surgery. First, you need skin grafts to repair the scar tissue. Because of the depth of the injuries, we would need to do a full-thickness draft, and for that we usually take some skin from the back to transplant to the face. This kind of operation is fairly straightforward and usually has few complications. The only challenge in your case is that the damage is quite extensive, so the amount of graft needed is large. The other operation is a bit trickier. To repair the damage to the facial muscles, we would need to transplant a small flap of muscle from the inner thigh to the face and connect it to the facial nerves.” The doctor explained the timeline for the surgery and follow-up appointments and listed the risks, which were pretty minimal and mostly related to the use of the general anesthesia, then asked if they had any questions.

“If I get this surgery, will I look like I did before?” Coop asked immediately.

“Not exactly. The grafts never blend in perfectly, especially when the amount of graft needed is so extensive. Because of your full-thickness injuries, we would actually be reconstructing some of your facial features. But we can work off of a photo so we can match the new features as closely as possible to how you looked prior to the injury.”

“And would this procedure be covered by insurance? I realize that plastic surgery is typically considered cosmetic.”

“That is usually the case, but facial reconstruction following traumatic injury is often covered. You can never predict what the insurance companies are going to decide, but we can make a strong case that this surgery is medically necessary. It’s not merely cosmetic, because the muscle transplant will actually restore function by allowing for enhanced facial expression.”

“Wait.” Harry had been quiet, letting Coop take the lead, but he had to make sure he had heard that correctly. “You mean the reason he doesn’t have facial expression – he can’t smile or anything – is because of this damage to the facial muscles?”

“Yes, that’s right. The lacerations penetrated beneath the dermis into the muscles and nerves, causing facial paralysis.”

“So –” Harry felt like he was asking stupid questions, but he wanted to be absolutely clear on this – “if he gets the surgery, he’ll be able to smile again?”

“If it’s successful, yes. That is the goal. In 95% of cases, the patient regains a nearly complete range of motion within several months.”

As they wrapped up the visit and headed back to the parking lot, Harry’s head was spinning. All this time, he had thought that Coop never smiled because he was emotionally incapable of it. Now, it turned out that he was physically incapable of it. A simple surgery, and there was a 95% chance that Coop would be able to smile again, to outwardly express joy or anger or confusion or sympathy or the million other emotions that Harry knew he still felt on the inside. Harry had learned to read Coop’s emotional state based on subtle changes in his voice or body language, while resigning himself to that blank expression on Coop’s face, the one that made it look like the face of a stranger. This surgery might make it possible to look at Coop and finally see the face of his friend, and that possibility was one he couldn’t resist.

While they drive towards home, Coop was silent. Harry kept quiet, too, until they were halfway across town and he couldn’t stand it anymore. “So what do you think?” he asked Coop, trying to sound as casual as possible.

Coop took a long time to answer and, when he finally did, it wasn’t really an answer. “You want me to get the surgery.” Harry saw no point in denying that, so he didn’t. But then Coop continued, “You hate looking at me when I’m like this.”

That was so far off base that Harry made a sudden wild turn off the road and into a gas station parking lot, just so he could turn and look Coop square in the face. “What did I do to make you think that? I don’t care what you look like. All I care about is that you’re here –”

“That’s not what I meant. I mean that, when you see my scars, it reminds you of what happened, and that makes you feel unhappy. You want me to look the way I used to look because you want me to be the way I used to be.”

Everything that Coop had just said was true, and yet on some other level it was all completely wrong. The incongruity resolved itself into anger. That was what Harry’s default emotional state seemed to be these days, but what was different was that now the anger was now directed at Coop. Harry had never, ever been angry at Coop before. But now he was, and the fury came through in his voice as he said, “Don’t tell me what I feel or what I want.”

Harry was shocked was by the harshness of his own voice. He felt suddenly nauseous. Anger at Coop was a feeling that didn’t agree with him. Opening the door, he stepped outside, wanting some fresh air. He walked around to the back of the truck and pulled down the tailgate so he could sit on it, watching the traffic flow by. A moment later, Coop followed him out of the truck and sat next to him. Harry forced some calm back into his voice and continued with what he was trying to say. “I don’t need a reminder of what happened. When I look at you, all I feel is just grateful that you got out. It’s true that I don’t like that you have those scars, because I don’t like that you got hurt like that. But I don’t want you to be anyone other than who you are, because I know you’re still you. And what I do want is for you to be able to crack a damn smile once in a while if you feel like it. So, yes, I want you to get the surgery.”

Coop took all that in. “I can’t let them give me my old face. Even if I wanted them to, it’s the face of a serial killer that’s been all over the news. Someone would be sure to notice the resemblance.”

“The Twin Peaks Killer is dead,” Harry pointed out. “No one’s looking for him.”

“Even so. I can’t look at that face in the mirror anymore.”

Despite not liking to hear that, Harry had to admit that there was probably good reason not to restore Coop’s old face. He couldn’t imagine how horrible it would be if the authorities or the media or random people on the street started wondering why the spitting image of the Twin Peaks Killer was walking free and alive through the streets of Spokane. But he saw another option. “It doesn’t have to be your face,” he said, somewhat reluctantly. “The surgeon said they would base the reconstruction on a photo. So we give them a photo of, I don’t know, some random guy from a magazine. Then you get a completely new face that no one recognizes, you blend in better, you can smile, no downside.”

Coop seemed to mull that over. “I suppose that is a good solution,” he said finally.

“So you’ll do it?”

“If the insurance covers the operation, yes.”

Harry tried not to show his relief too obviously. “This is what you want, right?” he said uncertainly. “I mean, you’re not just doing it because it’s what I want, are you?”

“I don’t think there’s much of a distinction. I don’t really want anything, but you want enough for the both of us. And if this will make you happy, maybe it will make me happy too.”

That was probably what Dr. Sherman would call co-dependence, but Harry was past caring about that. He just wanted to see Coop smile again, even if it was on a face that wasn’t really his. “Okay. I’ll get the ball rolling on the insurance tomorrow.”

They got back into the truck and drove home.


	21. Chapter 21

Harry was on a mission. The day before, he had stopped at the mailbox at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the apartment to check the mail on the way home from work. Sorting through it, he had seen that there was a letter from the state Medicaid plan, which provided Coop’s disability insurance as part of his disability coverage. Harry had stopped on the staircase to open the letter before going upstairs. That turned out to have been a good decision, because the letter said that the claim for Coop’s surgery was being denied. The stated reason: the procedure was elective. Harry had wanted to tear up the letter in frustration, but it had a number on it he could call to appeal the decision. So he just tucked it away in his jacket and stomped upstairs. He was just grateful he had gotten the mail before Coop did. Despite his stated willingness to undergo the procedure, Coop still didn’t seem very enthusiastic about it, and any setback like this might be enough of an excuse for him to give up on the idea.

Harry had been quiet all evening, and Coop had obviously picked up on his bad mood. In response to Coop’s question about whether anything was wrong, Harry waved it off by talking about how chaotic the mall was now that Santa’s workshop had just opened and there were screaming kids all over the place.

But now, Harry’s mission for the day was to call the state office and demand that they cover Coop’s surgery. He couldn’t call from home, because Coop would overhear, so he picked up the phone in the mall security office as soon as he clocked in at work.

It would have been a good day for someone to do something nefarious in the mall, because Harry spent half of his shift on the phone, staring at the wall of security video screens so that he could at least pretend he was working. He was on hold for so long, the musak the system played burrowed its way into his brain like a hot iron spike. When he did finally get connected with someone, he would give the claim number from the letter and explain that he was calling to appeal, but it would turn out that the person he was talking to didn’t have the authority to hear appeals, so they would transfer him to someone else, which meant at least another twenty minutes of hold musak.

After going through this cycle three or four times, he was finally connected to some sort of upper-level administrator. “That’s right, the adjuster made the decision to deny the claim because the program doesn’t cover cosmetic surgery.”

“It’s not cosmetic,” Harry said through gritted teeth. “It’s repairing damage sustained from an injury. And the surgeon said he was going to contact your office with proof that it’s medically necessary because it would restore function.”

“Yes, I have that form here,” the lady said. “The red flag here is that there’s been such a long interval since the injury was sustained. Nearly nine months, right? If it was truly medically necessary, why is the procedure only being undertaken now?”

“Because he – Dan, the patient – has been in psychiatric care. He was in a catatonic state for over a month and was committed at Eastern State Hospital for almost two months. It’s only now that he’s become ready for surgery.”

“Mmm. I see that the injury was self-inflicted?” The lady sounded like she was reading the forms as she spoke.

“Yes, that’s right.” Harry didn’t know whether that made the chances of getting the procedure covered better or worse, so he left it at that.

“Well, it may be possible to put your appeal through on the grounds that this injury was sustained as part of the psychiatric condition that causes Mr. Carter’s disability,” the lady said. “But to do that, we will need more information about the events surrounding the injury. The paperwork I have here is a bit vague on what took place. I can have some additional forms faxed over to you –”

Harry hung up on her. There was no way he was going to fill out more paperwork on how Coop had gotten injured. On a basic level, he rebelled at the thought of having to think about that night, or to ask Hawk or Albert for details he himself didn’t have access to, or – even worse – to have to ask Coop about it. And there was an even bigger problem, which is that he didn’t want the State of Washington looking too closely at those events, because the cover story of Dan Carter being held captive by the Twin Peaks Killer would not hold up to much official scrutiny. But he couldn’t give up on the surgery either. So he sat and thought for a minute, then called the surgeon’s office.

The receptionist was sympathetic as Harry explained his Kafkaesque experience with the state office. “Yes, we do run into problems sometimes when there’s been a long gap between the injury and the surgery.”

“So what do those people do?”

“We often work out payment plans. If you’re interested, we can work out an arrangement like that for you.”

By the time Harry hung up, he had a payment schedule worked out. He would be able to afford the monthly payments, barely. It would take years, but eventually he would pay the surgery off. If he got the promotion and raise, maybe he could even double up on payments and shave a few years off the repayment schedule.

His mood much improved, Harry went into the main part of the mall to patrol and do some real work. Not even the shrieks of the kids waiting in line to see Santa could dampen his spirits. On the way home, Harry stopped at a newsstand and bought half a dozen men’s fashion magazines. He felt a bit embarrassed, but he doubted that _Field and Stream_ would have a new face for Coop in it.

Walking into the apartment, Harry grinned and sat at the table next to Coop, who was drinking coffee and sorting photos from their latest outing. “The surgery is covered,” he said, leaving it vague so that he wouldn’t have to actually lie to Coop.

“That’s good news,” Coop said, although his tone was completely neutral.

“So? Can I call tomorrow to schedule it?”

“Yes, you may.”

“That’s great.” Harry grinned even wider and tossed the magazines onto the table.

“Harry?” Coop asked, eyeing the magazines. “Why did you buy _GQ_ and _Esquire_?”

“Because we’ve got work to do. We have to pick out a new face for you, remember?”

“From there?” Coop sounded skeptical.

“Of course. Where else would we find someone half as good-looking as you?”

They spent a strange, yet strangely enjoyable, evening flipping through the magazines and looking for replacement faces. They had to avoid celebrities, obviously, so they stuck to models in photo spreads or ads. None of the faces looked good enough to Harry. But Coop seemed to find something liberating in imagining being someone else. He kept finding potential candidates and sliding the magazine over to Harry for a second opinion. Each time, Harry rejected them. The models, while attractive enough, all seemed to have a generic look. There was no one who had the features of Coop’s face that Harry remembered most clearly, like his eyes that lit up and his whole-face smile.

“Coop, that guy looks nothing like you,” Harry said for the twelfth time, shoving the magazine back dismissively.

“It’s not supposed to look like me, remember?” Coop said, sounding half-exasperated, half-amused. “I’m getting a new face.”

“You’re right,” Harry sighed. “Okay, it’s your face. You pick one.”

The one Coop finally settled on was not of a model, but of a writer for _Rolling Stone_ whose photo accompanied a piece he had written about R.E.M. This guy also did not look like Coop, but he did have an intelligence and charm in his face that was much more reminiscent of him than the airbrushed perfection of the models. So when Coop showed him the photo of the writer, Harry took a long look at it and said, “I guess that one’s okay.” Coop seemed to take Harry’s lack of objection as a ringing endorsement.

Harry carefully cut out the photo. He would stop at a copy shop on the way home the next day and get the thing enlarged, maybe put a background behind it so it would look less like something from a magazine. Before putting the photo away in his wallet, Harry took another long minute to stare at it and imagine this guy’s features on Coop’s face. He couldn’t imagine it, but it was something he would soon see for himself.

* * *

_Day 279_

It was surgery day. They had scheduled it for Harry’s day off. Harry and Coop were quiet as they drive to the hospital and filled out paperwork and Coop got settled in the pre-op room. The nurse let Harry stay with Coop while the preparations were being made.

“Harry, the surgery may take as long as twelve hours,” Coop said during a lull in the activity of the hospital staff, when they had the room to themselves. “You should go home for the day.”

“No, I’m staying here.” Harry had no desire to wait at home in the empty apartment. He wanted to be as close to Coop as possible.

“You have no cause for concern, Harry,” Coop said after a moment. “The risk of complications from this surgery is quite low.”

“I know that. I’m not concerned.” Harry wished Coop hadn’t even mentioned the words “risk” and “complications”. Those were concepts he didn’t want to give form to with his thoughts. “You’re going to be fine,” he added, like it was an order.

“Yes, I will be.”

Just then, the nurse came in to inform them that the operating room was ready. Harry looked at Coop. He realized that this would be the last time he would see this version of Coop’s face. That thought came with an unexpected sense of loss. After all, Harry suddenly realized, he had known the Coop with this face, this scarred, broken Coop, for much longer than he had known the original one. It just felt like he had known the old Coop – the one with the handsome face and the contagious smile and the bright spirit – forever, because that was the one who had lived in his mind for five years. But now, the thought that he was saying goodbye to another iteration of Coop filled Harry with a sense of grief.

Harry reached out and squeezed Coop’s hand, choking out, “I’ll see you soon.”

Coop squeezed his hand back. Then the nurse shooed Harry back to the waiting room.

Harry spent the entire day in the hospital, waiting. He knew intellectually that the risk from the surgery was low, but he hated the helpless feeling of knowing that there wouldn’t be a damn thing he could do if something did go wrong. Moreover, he hated not knowing what to expect after the surgery, not having a picture in his head of what Coop would look like now. So he spent the day in the waiting room, pacing, flipping listlessly through magazines, getting coffee from the vending machine. His stomach growled, but he didn’t want to leave for the cafeteria in case something happened while he was gone. He couldn’t do much, but he could at least be there for when Coop came out of surgery.

As the winter sun gave up and retreated below the horizon in the late afternoon, Harry found himself checking his watch every few minutes. It had already been eight hours. It was inconceivable to him that, all this time he had been in this room, Coop had been in a room somewhere nearby getting his face cut apart and put back together, and they weren’t even done with him yet. Harry tried not to think about Coop’s face being cut open, which led him to trying not to think about how Coop must have looked that night in the woods when the deputies found him. The thought of blood on Coop’s face gave Harry nightmares like nothing else did. He remembered the hotel room at the Great Northern, where the thing from the Black Lodge had laughed with blood dripping down from its forehead after it had smashed the bathroom mirror. He wondered if Coop had been forced to watch that whole scene through the thing’s eyes.

By Harry’s watch, it had now been just over twelve hours. He was starting to panic, because twelve hours was the upper estimate the surgeon had given for how long it would take. What the hell was taking so long? He stood up, debating whether he should go pester the receptionist to ask the operating room for an update. After the dark thoughts he had been harboring the past few hours, he felt half-crazed with the desire to see Coop and make sure he was okay, that he was still there. As Harry finally decided that he would make a nuisance of himself and started toward the reception desk, Dr. Chandra, the surgeon, entered the room, still wearing his scrubs. Seeing Harry, the doctor came over to him.

“The operation went well,” Dr. Chandra said. “He’s in the recovery room now.”

“So he’s okay?” Harry asked, relieved. “Everything went okay?”

“Yes, it was just a bit slow going with the amount of tissue transfer we had to do, but there were no major problems.”

“And did it work? I mean, the reconnecting of the muscle with the nerve –” Harry floundered, still a bit unclear on the anatomical details.

“We won’t know for a few days if the muscle transfer was successful. But I’m optimistic.”

Harry finally felt like he could breathe again. “Can I see him?”

“Yes, he’s in the recovery room now while they get an overnight room ready for him.”

Harry thanked the doctor, and a nurse escorted him into the recovery room. Coop was lying in the bed with his face covered in bandages, and Harry stopped short at the sight. Of course Coop’s face would be bandaged following the surgery, but Harry hadn’t been prepared for how powerfully that would remind him of the way Coop had looked during his first days in the psychiatric hospital. At Harry’s approach, Coop turned his head to look at him. The eye contact was reassuring, dispelling some of the resemblance to the catatonic version of Coop in Medical Lake. So Harry edged further into the room and sat in a chair by the bed, summoning up a shaky smile.

“Hey, Coop. How are you feeling?” Harry laid his hand on Coop’s arm.

“All right. A bit foggy. It’s a common side effect of general anesthesia.”

Coop’s speech was a bit slurred, and his eyes seemed to be having trouble focusing. “Does it hurt at all?” Harry asked, gesturing toward the bandages.

“Not at all. I believe they’re administering morphine.” Coop waved unsteadily at the IV he was attached to.

“Do you need anything?”

“Water, please. I’m thirsty.” So Harry filled a paper cup from the water cooler and gave it to him.

Not long after that, some hospital staff came in to move Coop to his overnight room. They pushed his gurney through the halls while Harry followed behind. Once Coop was settled in the new room and the medical people took off, Harry again took up his position beside the bed.

“Harry,” Coop said, “you must be exhausted. Go home and sleep.” Coop sounded like he was almost asleep himself by the end of the sentence.

“I will.” Harry wanted to linger, at least until Coop fell asleep. “I’ll come back in the morning, okay? I’ll bring coffee and donuts.”

Coop mumbled something in response, then quickly fell asleep. A nurse came back in after a few minutes, looking like she was on the verge of kicking Harry out. It was now nearly 9 pm, well past the posted visiting hours.

“I’m leaving,” Harry said, to head her off. “Just give me a minute.” She nodded and left.

Harry smoothed back Coop’s hair. Then, overwhelmed by the relief that had been flowing through him, he kissed the top of Coop’s head. “See you tomorrow,” he said quietly, and went home.

Harry couldn’t sleep that night. It was, he realized, the first night he had slept without Coop in the room since Coop had been discharged from Medical Lake. Apparently, sleep was now impossible without the quiet sound of Coop’s soft breathing in the background. Every time Harry started to drift off to sleep, he would register the silence in the room and bolt awake in panic that Coop was gone, before remembering where he was. So then Harry would lie awake and worry about whether Coop was doing okay in the hospital alone. After all, he had also been unable to sleep when Harry had been out working the graveyard shift during the brief stint at the warehouse. But that had been months ago. Besides, Coop was clearly so drowsy from the aftereffects of the anesthesia that tonight, at least, Harry was sure he was having no trouble sleeping.

But then there were other things to worry about. Harry wondered what Coop looked like now under those bandages, and whether the surgery had succeeded in restoring his facial movements. He wondered whether, even if Coop was soon able to smile, he would ever feel like smiling again. Ever since learning that Coop’s expressionless was caused by physical damage, Harry had been so hell-bent on fixing it that he hadn’t considered what he would do if the emotional damage was really the limiting factor after all. Maybe the problem wasn’t something that could be fixed by surgery. Harry lay in bed and worried about that the entire long, sleepless night.


	22. Chapter 22

_Day 282_

Coop was getting released from the hospital later in the day. For the past couple of days, Harry had shown up in the morning with coffee and donuts and hung out with Coop in the room until Coop pointedly told him he was going to be late for work. Harry had reluctantly gone to work and returned afterwards with more coffee and some pie and spent the evenings in the hospital room watching TV with Coop. Now that it was discharge day, Harry had called in sick. Coop hadn’t wanted him to miss work, especially since the mall was now slammed with holiday shoppers and kids visiting Santa, and blowing off work when all hands were needed on deck would probably not help Harry’s chances at the promotion. But Harry had asked how Coop was supposed to get home, and Coop had said he’d take a cab, and Harry had laughed, and Coop had said he was serious, and Harry had laughed again and called in sick.

Dr. Chandra had already given them a long list of post-operative instructions, covering everything from the follow-up appointment schedule to the need to avoid contact sports for at least three months. The bandages also needed to stay on for another week or so and, now that Coop was going home, Harry would be helping him to change the bandages twice a day. That meant Harry was finally going to see what Coop’s face looked like now. And apparently Coop was going to see too, because the doctor had said that there was a period of psychological adjustment following a major change in one’s physical appearance. So the hospital was making a big deal out of the big reveal of Coop’s new face this morning. In addition to the surgeon and a nurse, there was also a psychologist in the room, who had pulled Harry aside earlier to earnestly explain to him the importance of keeping his outward reaction positive no matter what.

Harry sat by the bed, Dr. Chandra and the psychologist standing by, while the nurse methodically removed the bandages from Coop’s face. As the last bandage was removed, Harry’s initial reaction was one of relief. He hadn’t really known what to expect, but the face he saw before him was somewhat reminiscent of how Coop had looked before. Some of the scarring was still visible, but anyone looking only briefly would probably not notice it. And the rebuilt sections of Coop’s nose and chin and eyebrow were not quite the same as his old face. But the overall appearance was close, almost like looking at Coop’s brother.

Noticing that Coop was watching him carefully for his reaction, Harry smiled, not even having to fake it. “You look good, Coop.”

Coop nodded, as if that was all he needed to hear. The nurse gave him a small hand mirror, and Coop peered into it. “You’ve done excellent work, Dr. Chandra,” he said dispassionately. “Thank you very much.”

“Yeah, thank you,” Harry added. He was relieved that Coop would now be able to go out in public without drawing so much attention, and that he looked more like himself again. Maybe soon he would even be able to smile, and then he would really look like his old self. Maybe the surgery would be the first step in letting Coop put the whole horrible ordeal behind him.

* * *

_Day 298_

Coop had been out of the hospital for a couple of weeks now. Harry was now used to seeing his new, almost-familiar face. They had already been to a couple of follow-up appointments and, according to Dr. Chandra, everything was healing as expected, even though it was too soon to say whether or not Coop would regain control of his facial muscles. But the news seemed good enough that Harry had a spring in his step as he walked around the mall on patrol, without anything – the bright holiday lights, the sound of the same ten Christmas songs playing on a loop, the unruly kids rushing around – dampening his spirits.

As the winter weather had made outdoor photography conditions more difficult, Coop now spent much of his time at home organizing his photos. Harry had suggested getting some of the best ones enlarged so that they could give them as gifts, and Coop had spent hours selecting the perfect one for each recipient. They had even mailed Albert a print. Harry had suggested sending him one of Coop’s earlier photos, a rusted car in a junkyard, because there was something about the aesthetic of the ruins that he thought would appeal to Albert.

They had met Katie the barista girl for lunch in the mall and presented her with a print of one of Coop’s artistic fall leaves compositions. It was her first time seeing Coop since the surgery, and she blushed all the way through lunch as she talked about how she had just been accepted to Gonzaga Law School. She was even more flirtatious than usual, but she had had a crush on Coop even when his face was disfigured, so Harry had to give her credit for not being shallow.

Harry had also called Dr. Sherman and invited her to meet them at the coffee shop across the street from their apartment. There, they had given her a nice print of the vineyards in the Walla Walla Valley. She was delighted that Coop had gotten the surgery and that he had taken up photography. “I see a lot of positive changes,” she told him. “You’ve made so much progress in less than a year.” She hugged them both before leaving.

Hawk had come down for a day trip a couple of days before Christmas, and Harry had cooked a ham and some sides and bought a pumpkin pie from the bakery. They had all stuffed themselves while watching college football, and Harry and Coop had given Hawk a print of the Clearwater River, the spawn-reddened bodies of fall chinook salmon huddled beneath the surface.

Harry had had to work a double shift on Christmas Eve, when the mall was absolute chaos from last-minute shoppers. In solidarity, Coop had tagged along for most of his shift, bringing him coffee refills and even helping with some of the crowd control. Exhausted, they had gotten home late and went straight to bed.

Now it was Christmas Day. The mall was closed, of course, and Harry was grateful for the opportunity to recover from the frenetic pace of the day before. He slept in late, then got up and made pancakes to serve with some of the leftover ham. He and Coop sat at the table, eating breakfast and drinking coffee. They weren’t planning on doing anything special for the holiday, because they had basically already celebrated during Hawk’s visit a couple of days before. Harry was grateful to just have a quiet day at home. He marveled, as he always did when he stopped to think about it, that Coop was here with him now. This would be the first Christmas in five years that Harry had spent sober.

Coop looked up from his coffee and met Harry’s eyes. Harry was sure that Coop knew what he was thinking about. He always had been good at that, or maybe Harry was just bad at hiding what he was feeling. Harry smiled at Coop, to send the message _I’m glad you’re here_ without having to say anything. He wanted to make it clear that, although there was melancholy mixed in, the overriding feelings he was experiencing were joy and gratitude at Coop’s presence. In response, Coop made a slight twitching motion with the corner of his mouth. Harry had noticed him doing that a couple of times since the surgery. It was like he was trying to smile but had forgotten how. Or maybe it was involuntary, like a spontaneous smile that his newly reconnected facial nerves and muscles hadn’t quite worked out how to coordinate yet.

“Hey, Coop,” Harry said. “Have you been doing those facial exercises Dr. Chandra wants you to do?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I haven’t seen you do them.” Harry didn’t want to nag, but the surgeon had said it was important for Coop to spend a few minutes every day practicing smiling and making other facial movements, to rebuild the connections. That was apparently the path to the holy grail, the ability to smile involuntarily in response to external stimuli, which Dr. Chandra called an “emotional smile.” Upon hearing those instructions, Harry had initially boggled at the idea of Coop, of all people, needing to practice smiling. Coop, who before had smiled as easily as the sun shone. But if practice was what it would take to see an authentic Coop smile again, then Harry was going to make damn sure Coop practiced.

Coop rolled his eyes. That, at least, was an expression he didn’t need perfectly coordinated facial muscles for. “I do them while you’re at work,” he said, sounding almost embarrassed. “It looks rather awkward, so I prefer not to have an audience.”

“Okay, just checking.” Harry understood the desire for privacy while making weird facial contortions, and it’s not like there was a lot of privacy in the apartment. But during their last couple of appointments, when Dr. Chandra had asked Coop to demonstrate the progress he was making with the exercises, Coop had kicked Harry out of the exam room. In the back of his mind, Harry couldn’t help worrying that, despite the surgeon’s assurances that everything was on track, Coop still would be part of the unlucky five percent of patients who didn’t recover from facial paralysis even after surgery. “How are those exercises going, anyway?” Harry asked, trying to at least get some kind of update.

“Fine, I suppose. Dr Chandra says that I’m making adequate progress. But it will still be months before I’m capable of natural expression.”

“Well, whenever you can pull off that first real smile, I want to be there to see it.”

“Of course you’ll be there, Harry,” Coop said, sounding incredulous at the thought that he would find something to smile about without Harry’s presence.

As they finished their breakfast, Harry cleared away the breakfast dishes and refilled their coffee cups. Coop suddenly looked a bit shifty. “Harry, I have something for you,” he said hesitantly.

“Yeah?” Harry hadn’t been expecting any sort of Christmas present, since they were keeping the holiday low-key.

“It’s not much. But I want you to have it.” Coop got up and reached under his bed, pulling out a large photo print. He handed it to Harry, saying, “I went back to the photo shop to get this one enlarged for you.”

Harry stared at the photo. It wasn’t one he had seen before, but he recognized the place where it had been taken. He and Coop had driven south to the Palouse Hills late one windy afternoon in October, when the light and the wheat fields were both glowing in gold. The proverbial amber waves of grain stretched away across the rolling hillsides, furrowed into neat rows that looked as soft and warm as a corduroy jacket. Just off-center in the photo, off in the distance, was Harry’s silhouette, which was unusual because Coop never included people in his photos. This was the first one Harry could recall seeing that featured a human subject. He hadn’t even been aware that Coop had taken his picture. Apparently, Coop had snuck in the photo while Harry was wandering around and had his back to the camera. The overall effect was something like that of an old Marlboro Man print ad. With his hat and the stance he was in, framed against the setting sun, Harry resembled a cowboy in the Old West. The small human figure magnified the vastness of the surrounding open and empty landscape.

“This is a great photo,” Harry said. “I didn’t see this one before. I didn’t even know you took it.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise. Because this is how I see you.”

Harry studied the photo again. “You see me as a cowboy?”

Coop made a sound that might have been laughter. “No. Well, yes, I suppose I do, in a way. But I mean that you’re my focal point. You give me perspective. And I don’t always know how to tell you that, but at least this way I can show you.”

Now that Coop described it, Harry could see what he meant. Without Harry in the photo, the landscape of the photo would appear featureless and overwhelming. But, as it was, the rolling hills looked inviting, inhabited as they were by the small and distant figure. It was as if Harry’s presence in the photo had brought the wide world down to a human scale.

“Thanks, Coop,” Harry said, swallowing against the lump in his throat. “This means a lot to me.”

Coop nodded and sat down with his coffee again. Harry hunted around for some hardware to hang the print on the wall. He mounted it on the wall opposite his bed, so it would be the first thing he saw when he woke every morning.


	23. Chapter 23

_Day 317_

Harry had just gotten home from work when the phone rang. “Hello?” he said into the phone, distracted by trying to get his boots off before the snow packed into the treads came out on the carpet.

“It’s me,” said a most unwelcome voice, adding unnecessarily, “Albert.”

“Oh.” Harry pulled off his boots and threw them over by the door with a little more force than was needed. Albert usually knew better than to call when Harry was home, but then, Harry had just gotten off work. “Coop’s right here,” Harry said, preparing to hand the phone over to Coop, who was sitting on the couch.

“Wait. I want to talk to you.”

“About what?” Harry didn’t know where this conversation was going, but he already wanted it to be over.

“I’m in the Tri-Cities. Just wrapped up a case here.”

“And?” The Tri-Cities were only two hours south of Spokane, so Harry could guess where this was going, but he wasn’t about to extend an invitation.

“I’m going to drive up to Spokane this evening and spend the weekend there before I head back east on Sunday afternoon.”

“Is this something we have any say in?”

“You? No, I don’t care what you say. But I will talk to Coop now, and I’ll only come if he wants me to. Just wanted to give you a heads-up.”

“How considerate of you.” Harry handed the phone over to Coop, not needing to bother to tell him who it was.

“Hello, Albert,” Coop said. Harry went and banged around in the kitchen while they were talking, partly so he wouldn’t be eavesdropping and partly to get out his frustration about Albert’s imminent appearance.

After a few minutes, Coop called out, “Harry, is it all right with you if Albert comes to visit this weekend?”

“You don’t need to ask my permission, Coop. If you want to see him, you’re welcome to.” Harry rebuked himself for how pissy he sounded, but he couldn’t help it.

“One moment, please,” Coop said into the phone. Putting the phone on the table, Coop walked up to Harry. “Harry, I realize you and Albert don’t always get along. If his being here will be distressing to you, I’ll tell him not to come.”

“No, don’t do that,” Harry said, feeling even more like a jerk. “He’s your friend. It’s been a long time since you’ve seen him. Please, ask him to come.”

Coop stared at him a moment longer, gauging his sincerity, then went back to the phone. Harry sighed. He was sincere about wanting Coop to be able to see Albert. After all, besides himself and Hawk, Albert was the only friend Coop had left. But Harry also still resented Albert for abandoning Coop when he was at his most vulnerable. He also worried that Albert was not the most positive person to have around, and maybe he would do or say something to set Coop off. But, at the same time, Harry realized that his own personal animus was likely coloring his view of Albert’s actions and his potential to do further damage. After all, Harry knew that Coop spoke on the phone with Albert every couple of weeks, and so far those conversations had not had any negative outcome as far as Harry knew. If anything, Harry grudgingly conceded, it was probably good for Coop to have someone who wasn’t Harry to talk to.

Coop finished his phone call and came back across the room. “Albert is leaving the Tri-Cities now,” he said. “He’s checking into the Davenport Hotel when he gets here.” That was the fanciest hotel in Spokane. “He would like us to meet him at 7:30 for dinner at the hotel restaurant.”

“I’ll drop you off there,” Harry said immediately. “He can bring you back afterwards, or you can call me from the hotel and I’ll come pick you up.”

“No, Harry, he invited both of us.”

“Well, I’m politely declining the invitation.” Harry had no desire to spend the evening with Albert.

“Please, Harry.” Coop looked at him beseechingly. “I want you to come.”

“Why?” Coop had to know that having Harry and Albert in the same room would not make for a peaceful evening.

“Because, as you said, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen him and, as I’m sure you’ll agree, he can be rather difficult. Although I used to be quite adept at handling him, that was a long time ago, before – well, when I was different. So I would feel more comfortable if you were there.”

“Okay, I’ll come.” Harry really would do anything for Coop. Maybe it was for the best anyway, this way Harry could supervise Albert and make sure he wasn’t doing anything to further damage Coop’s mental health. Dammit, this meant he would have to wear a jacket and tie, that Davenport restaurant was fancy. And who would be paying for this? Even though Harry had finally gotten the promotion and its attendant raise, he hadn’t budgeted in a dinner at an upscale restaurant. Of course, Albert probably would offer to pay, but would be so obnoxious about it that Harry would end up paying for himself and Coop out of spite. Oh well, Harry reminded himself. Anything for Coop.

They met Albert in the hotel lobby. Albert walked right up to them and cast an appraising eye on Coop. “Well, you look all right, I suppose,” was his greeting. “Better than the last time I saw you, that’s for sure.”

Harry glared, but Coop just extended his hand to Albert and said, “It’s wonderful to see you, Albert.”

“You too, Coop. It hasn’t been the same without you.”

Albert then turned to Harry and shook his hand. “Believe it or not, I’m glad to see you too.”

Harry just grunted in reply, not wanting to lie by returning the compliment.

The dinner went surprisingly well. Albert ordered a bottle of wine that he ended up drinking most of on his own. Harry stuck to water. Coop initially also declined the wine, probably as a show of support for Harry, but Harry gently urged him to have a glass. They ordered crab puffs and steaks and chocolate cake, and as the night went on they all became more and more relaxed. Maybe it was because Harry and Albert were both intentionally on their best behavior, or maybe it was because of the wine’s mellowing effect on Albert, but there was remarkably little tension between them. Much to Harry’s relief, Albert didn’t bring up any past events or make any insensitive remarks. When Coop mentioned that Harry had been promoted and was now in charge of security at the mall, Albert, with visible effort, swallowed whatever snide remark was welling up inside him and instead politely congratulated Harry. Harry, in turn, deadpanned something about going to mall cop training at Quantico, and Albert had stared for a moment and then laughed, Harry joining in. It was the first time Harry could remember laughing with Albert. On the whole, Albert was downright charming for most of the evening. It was a side of him Harry had never suspected even existed. Albert did pay for the dinner, but wasn’t obnoxious about it at all, just signaling the waiter and signing the check without once interrupting his story about the case he had just been working in the Tri-Cities, so that Harry almost didn’t notice that the bill was already paid until they were standing up to leave.

Harry had to work the next day, so Coop and Albert made plans to meet up in the morning so Coop could show Albert the sights of Spokane. Albert didn’t even say anything snarky about what kind of sights a mid-sized city in eastern Washington State could possibly have.

When they got back to the apartment, Coop said, “Thank you for coming, Harry. I know it was a sacrifice on your part.”

Harry shrugged. “Actually, it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Maybe he’s gotten a bit less obnoxious.”

“I always knew that you two could be friends if you each just gave the other a chance.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Harry said, and started getting ready for bed.

* * *

_Day 318_

Harry had been home from work for an hour or so. He was spending the evening watching the Gonzaga basketball game on TV while Coop and Albert were still out doing whatever they had found to do in Spokane. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Harry frowned as he muted the TV and headed to see who it was. Coop had a key, so if that was him coming home, he would have just let himself in.

Harry opened the door to find Albert, but no Coop with him. “Where’s Coop?” Harry asked, instantly going into panic mode. Maybe Albert had said something stupid and sent Coop off into a catatonic state by the side of some highway.

“Oh, he said something about wanting to hitchhike to the Yukon Territories, so I gave him a twenty and sent him on his way,” Albert said, sarcasm dripping from his every word. Harry glared and waited for the real answer. “He’s in the coffee shop across the street,” Albert relented. “I wanted to come talk to you alone for a minute.”

“Okay.” Harry kept glaring.

Albert looked at the door. “May I come in, please?” he asked with exaggerated politeness.

Harry stood aside so Albert could enter the apartment. Albert looked around and clearly bit back a comment about the size and spartan nature of their accommodations. He gingerly sat on the edge of the couch, like he wasn’t sure where it had been, and Harry pulled one of the folding chairs away from the wall and sat as well.

There was a moment of awkward silence, which Albert then broke with an awkward question. “Just what the hell is your long-term plan here?”

“What do you mean?”

“With Coop. And you. I mean, he seems to be functioning at a basic level now. Better than most of the mouth-breathing idiots out there in the world do on their best day. I know he’s not ever going back to the FBI, but –”

“Why not?” Even though Harry had never considered the possibility of Coop working at the FBI again, he was suddenly outraged at the casual dismissal. “If he wants to do that, he can.”

“You’re joking, right?” Albert looked taken aback. “Quite apart from the fact that he’s legally dead, and was one of our agency’s most wanted fugitives, he would never make it through the psych eval.”

“Not now, maybe. But he’s getting better all the time. And the legal issues might get straightened out eventually.”

“As a representative of the federal government, I feel obliged to warn you not to count on anything that would require multiple agencies getting their shit together. Anyway, the more salient point is that Coop is a walking train wreck. Better than he was, sure, but he _was_ a completely non-functioning basket case.”

“Don’t talk about him like that.” Harry was shaking with rage now. This was the Albert he remembered, the eminently punchable one. “You weren’t even here –”

“Hey, I saw him at his worst, remember? That’s why I’m pleasantly surprised and impressed that he’s gotten as far as he has. I’m even willing to give you much of the credit for that. But, again, I have to ask you, what is the long-term plan? He’s going to have to get a job and his own place eventually. You can’t keep supporting him forever.”

“Why not?”

Albert looked incredulous. “Because you need to get your own life and let him have his.”

“I have a life. We have a life.”

“You mean this apartment?” Albert waved a hand at their surroundings as if they had personally offended him. “Your job as sheriff of the Spokane mall? Coop’s photography hobby?”

“Yeah, what’s wrong with all that? If we’re happy, it’s good enough for us.”

“But that’s it exactly. You’re not happy.”

“What the hell do you know? You’re the most miserable bastard I’ve ever met.”

“That may well be, but at least I don’t delude myself. You still think that Coop is going to magically be back to his old self one day, but that will never happen. I barely recognized him when I saw him in that hotel lobby, and not because of his face. He’s been completely broken by what he went through. You’re living with a ghost.”

Harry stood up. He really was on the verge of hitting Albert now. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Coop told me that.” Despite the viciousness of his words, Albert’s tone was matter-of-fact now. “Those are his words exactly.”

“No.” Harry shook his head. “He would have told me if that’s the way he felt.”

“No, he wouldn’t, because all he wants is to make you happy. Do you not see how fucked up and codependent your relationship is?”

Harry walked across the room so he would be out of striking distance of Albert. That was the only way he could restrain himself from violence. It enraged him to hear the same clinical terms Dr. Sherman had used thrown at him like weapons by Albert. “You need to leave,” Harry managed to say.

Albert stood up. “Look, it probably doesn’t sound like it, but I am sympathetic. I know you care about Coop, probably too much. But you’re not helping him by having these high expectations that he can never fulfill. He’s always going to see how sad you are that he’s no longer the person you want him to be, and that will make him feel even worse about who he is. So you can’t keep living like this. I’m not saying you can’t see him, but he needs to get a job, his own place, maybe in a different city. And you need to finally straighten out your own life. Just my two cents, which I’m sure you’ll completely ignore.”

Harry pointedly held the door open for Albert, not saying another word. Albert sighed and left.

When Coop got home a couple hours later, Harry was lying in bed, even though it was still early. “Harry?” Coop said softly. Facing the wall, Harry feigned sleep. If he said anything, Coop would know something was wrong, and Harry didn’t want to talk about it.

But Coop seemed to know something was wrong anyway. He came and sat on the edge of the bed. “Are you all right?” He reached out and put a hand on Harry’s shoulder. That gentle touch undid Harry completely. He rolled away from the wall to face Coop.

“Oh, Harry,” Coop said in response to the look on his face. “What did Albert say to you?”

Harry shook his head. “You know you can tell me anything, right?” he said instead. “I mean, I want you to be happy, but I’m not mad or disappointed or anything that you’re not.”

“I want to be happy. I just think I’ve forgotten how.”

Coop’s hand was still resting on Harry’s shoulder. Harry covered it with his other hand. “You’ll remember,” he said. “Just give it time.”

“I will. I must say, I’m rather annoyed at Albert. What I told him was in confidence. It’s not that I don’t feel I can talk to you, Harry. It’s just that I know it hurts you to hear these things. And I shouldn’t have allowed Albert to go speak to you alone. When we were at the coffee shop, he told me he was just stepping out to get some files from his car –”

“It’s okay.” Harry paused. “Do you really feel like a ghost?”

“Sometimes. But then there are times when I almost remember how I used to feel. When I feel as if I’m real again.” Coop looked at the photo of Harry in the Palouse Hills hanging on the wall, then squeezed Harry’s shoulder.

“You are real,” Harry mumbled. Even though he had just gone to bed this early as a way to avoid the conversation he was now having, something about the emotional turmoil of the evening was making him actually tired. Soon after, he drifted off to sleep, the feel of Coop’s hand on his shoulder like a solid anchor.


	24. Chapter 24

_Day 320_

Albert had gone home the day before, much to Harry’s relief. Out of deference to Coop, Harry had joined them for breakfast at the coffee shop before he had to go to work and Albert had to leave for the airport. At breakfast, Harry and Albert had exhibited neither the cautious camaraderie of the first night’s dinner nor the outright hostility of the confrontation in the apartment the previous night. Instead, they had each mostly ignored the other, letting Coop take the lead in conversation. But since Coop was still not nearly back to his pre-ordeal conversational prowess, that made for a pretty quiet breakfast. Afterwards, Albert had stiffly shaken hands with them both, wishing them luck in what sounded to Harry like an insult but was probably meant as sincerely as Albert ever meant anything. And then he was mercifully gone.

Now, the next day, Harry had just gotten home from work. There was something off about Coop. He had barely acknowledged Harry’s return, even though he usually asked questions about how his day at work had gone. And Coop was just sitting at the table, with no photos, no photography books, no pieces of photography equipment to fiddle with. He did have his usual cup of coffee but, uncharacteristically, showed little interest in drinking it. Instead, he was stirring the coffee endlessly with a spoon but, since he took his coffee black as midnight on a moonless night, there was nothing to stir into it.

Harry attributed Coop’s weird mood to the aftereffects of Albert’s visit. That was something Harry was feeling himself, like an especially unpleasant hangover. It was a bit early for dinner, so Harry sat at the table across from Coop with the newspaper he had picked up on the way home. He opened it to the classified ads.

“Hey, Coop,” Harry said, trying to lighten the mood. “I was thinking, since I got that raise, we can probably afford to rent a house now. It would be nice to have some more space. Maybe somewhere out on the edge of town, where we could have a yard big enough for a garden. And if there’s a basement or garage, we could turn it into a darkroom.”

Coop didn’t respond but kept stirring his coffee. So Harry went on, “Or, if you would rather stay close in to town, there’s some affordable neighborhoods over by the Gonzaga campus. That way, we could still be within walking distance to everything.”

Still no response. Harry was getting frustrated, and a bit worried. This was too reminiscent of the old speechless Coop for his liking. “We don’t even have to stay in Spokane,” Harry said a bit desperately, even though he would probably have a hard time finding a job that paid as well right away if they moved somewhere else. He just wanted Coop to say _something_ in return. “We can go anywhere you want.”

Finally, Coop put down his spoon. “May I please see the classified ads when you’re done with them?” he asked, oddly formally, like he was addressing a stranger on a bus.

“Sure,” Harry said, grateful for any level of interest. He pushed the paper across the table. “I already circled a few that are in our price range.”

Coop shook his head. “I want to see the job listings.”

“Why?”

Coop bent his head over the paper, seemingly for the express purpose of avoiding eye contact with Harry. “I think it’s time I started working again. That way, I can save up and eventually rent my own apartment.”

Harry felt panic, anger, and hurt all simultaneously flare up, like gasoline thrown on a fire. “Coop, you’re sick. You can’t work, and you can’t live on your own.” He hated how harsh his own words sounded, so he quickly added, “At least, not yet.”

“I can’t keep depending on you forever,” Coop countered.

“Yes, you can. And anyway, it doesn’t have to be forever. Just until you’re better.” Harry got up and started pacing around the room, trying to work off his nervous energy. Wheeling on Coop, he demanded, “Did Albert say something to you?” It had to be Albert’s doing, it was no coincidence that Coop was bringing this up for the first time immediately after Albert had suggested the exact same thing to Harry. Now regretting that he had not hit Albert when he had the chance, Harry decided it would be worth buying a place ticket and flying across the country just to punch Albert in the face.

“This has nothing to do with Albert,” Coop said, which wasn’t a denial.

“Then where is this coming from?” Harry wracked his brains trying to figure out what he had done so that Coop suddenly couldn’t stand living with him and didn’t seem to even want to look at him.

In response, Coop got up and retrieved an envelope from one of the kitchen shelves. “This arrived in the mail today,” he said, tossing it on the table.

Harry picked up the envelope. It was the first of his monthly bills from the surgeon. “Oh,” he said aloud. He supposed he hadn’t covered his tracks very well, although he thought he had asked the office to send the bills to his work address rather than home.

Coop was still standing, and now looked straight at him. “You told me the surgery was covered,” he said. Now Harry recognized the tone of Coop’s voice and the way he had been acting since Harry got home. It was anger, which Harry had not recognized because he had never seen Coop angry before. Not like this, and certainly not at him. “The one thing I still believed in was that I could trust you,” Coop continued with barely restrained fury. “But you lied to me.”

Harry had never imagined that Coop would get this worked up about how the surgery was paid for. He had shown so little interest in practical matters like that, Harry had just assumed he didn’t care. “What does it matter? It’s just money.”

That was apparently the wrong thing to say. “No, it’s not just money. It’s your entire life that you’ve thrown away. You left Twin Peaks, and then you left Missoula. You left your career in law enforcement. If I’m not mistaken, you spent the better part of five years on a drinking binge. And now you’ve put yourself tens of thousands of dollars in debt, which it will take you years to pay off at your current salary. What happened to me in Twin Peaks destroyed my life. It didn’t have to destroy yours too.”

“You think I had a choice in that, in how it affected me?” Now Harry was angry too. “You have no idea what it was like for me.”

Coop shook his head. “All this past year, I’ve been trying to figure out why you would give up everything like that. At first, I thought it was because you felt responsible for what happened to me. And you know that I don’t have anywhere else to go, so you feel responsible for what happens to me now too.”

“You know that’s not why.” Even though Harry did blame himself for not doing something different that might have changed how things turned out, guilt was not anywhere on his list of motivating factors when it came to Coop. Coop had to know that he was coming from a place of much deeper feeling.

“Yes, I know now that it’s even worse than that. It’s because you’re my friend, and you care about me, or the person I used to be. And you just want your friend back. But that person is gone, and all that’s left is this scarred, broken shell.” Coop gestured helplessly at his own face. “It’s like I told Albert. I am a ghost. And that’s the most tragic thing in the world to be, because not only do I have to face all the things I’ve lost, but my presence also causes you pain. I have to watch every day as you get hurt because I’m not the person you want me to be. And I never will be.”

Hearing those words didn’t cause Harry the anger he had felt when Albert had said basically the same thing. Instead, at hearing Coop openly admit defeat like that, all Harry felt was grief. It took the form of the sickeningly familiar sensation of a knife stabbing him in the gut, the same sensation he had felt that night in Twin Peaks when he had realized that the best man he had ever known was gone and had been twisted into something evil. Harry had thought that blade had been removed when he had found out that Coop was alive, but now Coop’s words brought the pain back again, as sharp as ever. With a sudden single-minded intensity, Harry knew he needed to drink. That was the only remedy that had dulled the pain before, albeit incompletely and temporarily. And why not? He had only made the colossal effort it took to stay sober because Coop needed him. If Coop was giving up, why shouldn’t Harry just give up too?

So Harry silently turned and headed out the door. Halfway down the stairs, he heard Coop call his name, sounding remorseful. But Harry didn’t turn around, and Coop didn’t follow. Harry stopped only when he was outside on the sidewalk in the cold winter air.

After a moment, he turned and headed into the bar downstairs from the apartment. It had been months since the last time he was there, that night he had been kicked out and arrested, so they had probably forgotten him by now. It was the most convenient place, anyway, because he wouldn’t have to drive anywhere. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Harry was also aware that, despite their argument, he wasn’t willing to go too far away from Coop. An instinct deeply ingrained within him insisted that Coop might need him, no matter what he said, and that instinct pulled like gravity to keep Harry within the apartment’s immediate orbit.

Harry wasted no time in ordering his first several rounds of whiskey and throwing them back as quickly as he could. After months of sobriety, the alcohol went to his head a lot faster than it used to. The familiar anesthetic fog was welcome, but an unintended effect was that he felt his emotions becoming even more volatile, just as they had the last night he drank. Maybe drinking was no longer effective as the easy escape it had once been. That possibility just made him desperately drink even more, chasing the oblivion he knew awaited him if he could just get there.

After too many drinks to count, as he sat on his stool hunched over his glass, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Blearily, he figured it must be another good Samaritan giving him a hard time for ruining everyone else’s good night. His instinct was the same as it had been the last time someone tried to cut him off, and that was to come out swinging. But this time, it was an even more worse decision than it had been before, because the hand on his shoulder had been Coop’s, and it was Coop’s face that Harry swung his fist into before he realized who it was he was fighting.

Coop staggered backwards, blood spurting from his nose. Shocked at what he’d just done, Harry slid off the barstool to crumple onto the floor, like he was the one who’d just taken a blow to the face. He realized he was sobbing. Coop, meanwhile, had knelt down next to him on the floor, his face bloody and his eyes wide with concern as he tried to help Harry get up. He was saying something in a soothing tone of voice, but Harry couldn’t make out the words through the fog his head seemed to be encased in. The bartender said something, and Coop responded in a sharp tone of voice. Probably shooting down an offer to call the cops. The bartender apparently took pity on them and came out from behind the bar to help Coop get Harry up and outside. Maybe he helped them all the way upstairs to the apartment. Harry wasn’t sure later because it was around that time that the night slid into a blackout.

He did later have a few memories of the night, but they were so vague and fuzzy he couldn’t tell if they were real or not. He was pretty sure he had puked his guts out, his body rejecting the alcohol now that he had gone for so long without it. He remembered the cool bathroom tiles against his knees as he leaned over the toilet bowl, and thought he remembered feeling Coop’s hand on his back and hearing his voice. He hoped that part wasn’t real, because that was really something Coop shouldn’t have had to deal with. He also remembered lying in bed with the spins, and thought he remembered Coop’s arms around him, feeling like the only thing keeping him from drifting away. He definitely remembered crying, and thought he remembered Coop crying too. That was another part he hoped wasn’t real.

When Harry was capable of thinking a coherent thought again, it was dawn. Coop had thoughtfully shut the blinds, but a bit of light crept in around the edges. Harry turned his head to look at Coop’s bed. The motion sent stabbing pains through his head and made him feel like puking again, but his primary concern was that Coop’s bed was empty and looked like it hadn’t been slept in. “Coop?” Harry said, panicked, as he raised his head to survey the dark and apparently empty apartment.

“I’m right here, Harry,” Coop said, hurrying out of the bathroom with a hand towel. He put it against Harry’s forehead, bringing some cool relief. “Let me get you some water and aspirin.”

Harry’s mouth was paper-dry, and even the small amount of light in the room was enough to make his head pound, but he grabbed Coop’s wrist to prevent him from leaving. “I hit you,” Harry said, moving the towel away from his eyes so he could see Coop’s face in the dim light. Coop’s nose was bruised and swollen, confirming that the worst part of the entire horrible evening had in fact happened.

“It’s all right,” Coop said gently.

“No, it’s not,” Harry said, on the verge of tears again. He raised his hand to gingerly trace along Coop’s nose, trying to determine if any bones were broken. “The surgeon said you had to be careful to avoid blows to the face while you’re still healing. We should take you in for an examination. I might have really hurt you.”

“You didn’t,” Coop said, catching Harry’s hand and guiding it down away from his face. “I’m fine. I promise.”

Harry took a deep shuddering breath. “I didn’t know it was you. I never would have hurt you on purpose.”

“Of course, you wouldn’t, Harry. I know that.”

Coop gave his hand a gentle squeeze, then got up to get him the water and aspirin. Harry took it, and Coop sat back down on the edge of the bed. “I hurt you too,” Coop said quietly. “I’m sorry for what I said. It wasn’t true.”

“What part wasn’t true?” Harry asked bleakly. He didn’t want Coop taking back what he had said just to try to make Harry feel better.

“That there’s nothing left of who I used to be. I thought there wasn’t, I really did. Ever since I – got out, I haven’t felt like myself. I haven’t felt much of anything, just numb. But last night, I was so devastated to see you hurting like that. And I don’t think a ghost would be able to feel that. So I think I am still here, at least part of me. And I’ll keep trying to come all the way back, I promise. I won’t give up.”

“That’s all I ask.”

“But, Harry, you can’t give up either. Please, no matter what happens to me, I don’t want you to be self-destructive like that again.”

“I won’t.” The fact that he had gotten so drunk that he had hurt Coop, however unintentionally, was enough to make Harry renew his determination to stay sober. “I’m sorry you had to see me like that. I won’t do it again.”

Coop nodded. “Well, if you like, I can get my hangover cure ready for you now.”

Harry groaned. “Don’t you dare.” He remembered, way back, Coop had listed off a bunch of disgusting ingredients for a hangover cure. Despite the associated nausea, Harry smiled at the memory.

To his complete surprise and delight, Coop smiled back. Not one of his old effortless smiles. This one looked a bit pained, like it was the result of long practice. But despite its forced appearance, there was something genuine in Coop’s eyes that shone through, just like the light forcing its ways through the edges of the window blinds. And that sight was the best hangover cure Harry could have asked for.


	25. Chapter 25

_Day 364_

__Harry shifted his truck into low gear to navigate the steep icy chute the street had become. A few weeks ago, he and Coop had moved into their new rental house in the Cliff neighborhood, perched on a hill overlooking downtown Spokane. It was a great neighborhood, centrally located and with lots of parks and outstanding views, and they had been lucky to find a place they could afford there. Katie the barista’s aunt and uncle owned the place and had given them a good deal. Coop was in the process of converting the garage into a darkroom. He had also begun drawing up plans for vegetable and flower gardens to get started in the large yard once spring came.

It had looked like spring was just around the corner, but then an arctic blast had hit the Inland Northwest with a deep, hard freeze. So the garden would have to wait a few more weeks, and Harry would have to keep the snow tires on his truck for now. The one disadvantage to their new home was that all the streets that led there were so steep and treacherously icy. Hawk had just gotten a new truck, and he had given them his old one so that Coop would have a way to get into town while Harry was at work. Harry had meticulously inspected the old beater’s brakes, transmission, and other systems, and deemed it roadworthy. But he still didn’t want Coop driving up and down the steep icy streets, since Coop wasn’t used to winter driving in the mountains. So Coop had complied with Harry’s request to stay at home during the day until the roads were in better shape, saying he had a lot to do around the house anyway.

When Harry entered the kitchen, Coop greeted him with a hot cup of coffee. Harry accepted it gratefully, sliding into one of the chairs they had bought for their new dining area. Coop joined him with his own cup of coffee.

“So I was talking to Brian at the sporting goods store,” Harry said. “He says Palouse Falls is frozen right now.”

“A frozen waterfall?” Coop was intrigued. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“Me neither. I guess it only happens every few years.”

“I would love to take some photos of it.”

“Well, that’s why I brought it up.” Harry grinned. “Tomorrow’s my day off. Want to go see it?”

“That would be wonderful.” The gears were clearly already turning in Coop’s head about which camera settings to use. “How far of a drive is it?”

“Less than two hours. If we leave at 4:30, we’ll get there in time for sunrise.”

“Thank you, Harry.” Any reluctance Harry felt about getting up at an ungodly hour on his day off to drive to a frozen wasteland dissolved away at the enthusiasm in Coop’s voice.

* * *

_Day 365_

Harry wondered if Coop knew it was the one-year anniversary of his escape from the Black Lodge. Probably not. Harry was pretty sure that, for those first few weeks, Coop had had no sense of time or place, so he most likely had no idea what the date had been when he got out. But it was a date Harry would never forget. He would always remember that night in the bar in Missoula, the news report, the call on the payphone, the drive along Interstate 90 with no idea of what he’d find in Medical Lake. Painful though that night had been, it was the night when the healing had started. He glanced over to the passenger seat, where Coop was checking all his camera equipment as they drove through the dark empty backroads of southeastern Washington. Gratitude welled up in Harry, that Coop was sitting right here next to him in his truck cab, and he couldn’t help but reach out and give Coop’s knee a brief squeeze. Coop glanced over at him questioningly, then went back to fiddling with his camera.

They arrived at the state park that hosted Palouse Falls. Theirs was the only vehicle in the parking lot as, unsurprisingly, no one else was crazy enough to be out in the middle of nowhere before sunrise in subzero temperatures. When Harry opened his door, it immediately blew shut again, and he had to struggle against the wind to get out of the truck cab.

Harry looked at Coop, who was standing nearby with his bag of camera equipment. Harry had his own backpack of supplies. They were both dressed in multiple layers of windproof clothing, boots, gloves, hats, scarves, balaclavas. They looked like they were about to mount an overland expedition to the South Pole.

“Ready?” Harry asked, and Coop nodded. They set off.

Fortunately, it wasn’t far to the waterfall overlook. Their boots crunched on the snow along the path. The snow wasn’t deep, and what was there was frozen into a solid crust. The eastern horizon was lightening up with the promise of sunrise.

As they approached the stone wall of the waterfall overlook, Harry was struck by how silent the place was. He had been to Palouse Falls a few times before, and there was always a deafening roar during the approach. Now, the only sound was the crunching of their boots on the snow and the wind swishing by their ears.

“There it is,” Harry said. The waterfall was indeed frozen solid. In the pre-dawn light, they could barely make out a solid wall of ice where the falls would normally be. The whole scene had a fragile, creaking feel to it, like the water was just biding its time until it regained the strength to shatter the ice and flow again.

Coop took off his gloves and stuffed them in his pocket so he would have the manual dexterity to operate the camera. He quickly sized up some angles and set up his tripod. After a few minutes, the sun came creeping up over the horizon, casting a warm golden light over the whole frozen scene. The sunlight shone through the frozen pinnacles of the waterfall as if through the stained glass in a church window. It was one of the most beautiful things Harry had ever seen, made even more beautiful by the fact that they were the only ones there to see it. Coop went to town with his camera, taking a bunch of shots and then making minute adjustments to the settings or the location of the tripod before taking a bunch more.

Eventually, as the sun emerged fully above the horizon, Coop paused to change the film. He had already used up a whole roll. He turned away from the waterfall, towards the west, where the landscape was newly revealed by the magic golden light.

“This place is incredible,” Coop said. “So barren, but so beautiful.”

Harry looked. One of the advantages of tagging along on Coop’s photography expeditions was that it gave him new perspectives on familiar places. Harry had been to this area many times before and had thought of it as nothing more than a desolate and featureless place whose only noteworthy landmark was the famous waterfall. But, looking at it through Coop’s eyes, he could see that Coop was right. Despite, or maybe because of, how austere the landscape was, it was achingly beautiful.

“They call this area the Channeled Scablands,” Harry said.

“Why is it so empty?”

“Because of the Missoula Floods.” Harry didn’t know much about geology, but the floods were a point of local pride in Missoula, and he had heard the story a dozen times while living there. “Remember when we went to Missoula, and we saw those bathtub rings on the hillsides above the UM campus?”

Coop nodded.

“Those were from Glacial Lake Missoula. It formed during the Ice Age, when the ice sheet that covered Canada dammed the Clark Fork River. It was a huge lake, bigger than some of the Great Lakes. But then, when the ice sheet was retreating, the ice dam was breached, and the whole lake drained and caused these catastrophic floods across eastern Washington and down into the Columbia River Gorge.”

Coop surveyed the landscape around them. With the snow on the ground and the wind whipping across the plains, the Ice Age didn’t seem like an abstraction. Woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers would be right at home. “Those must have been some floods.”

“Yeah, they scoured away all the topsoil here, right down to the bedrock. They left behind these coulees and gravel bars and ripple marks, like you would find on a river bed. We’re standing among them now, but we can’t see them because they’re so big. You can’t even tell what they are until you see them from above.”

The story of the floods seemed to spark some inspiration in Coop. He moved his tripod away from the waterfall to photograph the lonely, wounded lands to the west, the bedrock outcrops sticking out like half-buried bones. “It’s good to know how a place got to be the way it is,” he said quietly as he framed the shot. “Everything is a product of its history. A catastrophe like that shapes everything that comes after. Like the canyon that the stream flows through now to make the waterfall. It wouldn’t be here if those floodwaters hadn’t stripped everything away.”

While Coop worked, Harry reflected on the Channeled Scablands, imagining everything that had been removed and gazing at what remained. After a few minutes, another gust of wind made Harry shiver.

“Come on, Coop, put your gloves back on before you get frostbite,” Harry said. “Time for a break.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out the thermos of hot coffee he had stashed there, handing it to Coop.

Pulling on his gloves, Coop took the cup of coffee. “A hot cup of joe is just what I needed,” he said, delight in his voice. “You know, you’re all right, Harry.” He pulled down his balaclava so he could take a sip, and he was smiling. A real, genuine, unforced smile, what the surgeon would call an emotional smile. It was the kind of smile Harry remembered on Coop’s face from before, the kind that could end an ice age.

Harry could feel his own face break out in a grin. Coop’s smile had always had that effect on him. Harry reached out and wrapped his gloved hands around Coop’s, which were in turn wrapped around the thermos of coffee. He looked at Coop’s face. He could finally see clearly that, beneath the changed and reshaped features, Coop was still there. At that, Harry felt a warmth inside, stronger than the arctic wind scouring the scarred lands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ended up being quite a long saga, so I extend my admiration and gratitude to anyone who stuck around for the whole thing. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it!


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